The aim of this essay is to study how the University Church is represented in student newspapers. By conducting an inductive thematic analysis on sixteen articles chosen from newspapers distributed by the student union at three Swedish universities, the main purpose of the study is to further understand the role and function of the University Church in a contemporary Swedish context. Three themes emerging from the initial step of the thematic analysis were chosen for further analysis: (1) a secularized church?, (2) provocation and (3) reasons to seek out the University Church. The themes were then highlighted by two theoretical perspectives: Mark Chaves? theory of internal Secularization and a theoretical framework developed by Anders Bäckström with the aim to explain the role of the church as a welfare agent in Sweden.The study shows that the University Church is portrayed as both an ambiguous and complex organization.

The study aims to analyze conceptions of death and dying at a clinic for palliative care, using a constructivist perspective and a discourse analytical approach. The empirical material consists of interviews with staff members, documents and photographs of the environment, taking both space and materiality into account. I conclude that the studied practice is mainly characterized by a tension between a caring discourse and a medical discourse..

The aim of this study is to examine the religious landscape of Brazil, and based on the theory of Secularization by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart to explain why Brazilians are religious and not secular. The study is a secondary analysis that uses existing statistics to examine different units of analysis of Brazil?s religious landscape, economics and equality, etc. Based on their theory I find that Brazil is still religious due to the lack of security in the country. Brazil is insecure in terms of measures of socioeconomic equality, stable politics without corruption, and physical safety of the citizens in Brazil.

This qualitative study examines if an interest in soccer can give the same meaningfulexperiences in a person's life as a religion would. Five soccer fans were interviewedregarding the meanings and impact of soccer in their lives. Two theories in the fields ofsport and religion were used to analyze the data: Antonovsky's sense of coherence (SOC)with its components meaningfulness, manageability and comprehensibility and Heelasand Woodheads "life-as" and "the subjective-life? derived from the concept "thesubjective turn". It was concluded that the interest in soccer affected the respondents?views of life.The respondents? personal identities were strongly associated with groupmembership, meaning that their interest in common with others was perceived to makeeveryday life meaningful and manageable.

This essay focuses on the relationship between Islam, secularism, girls and sexuality. These categories problematize gender and how it affects identity processes of young women with a Muslim background. Sexuality is especially emphasized. The Muslim background is placed in contrast to the prescribed norms and ideals of the Swedish society/context concerning gender, sexuality and identity and this essay analyses how young women create gender and identity and which possibilities and strategies they have and use to negotiate about space in the relationship to other people. A girls? relationship to her own and others? sexuality is precisely what makes her a girl, but more importantly, also to which kind of girl.

Tidigare studier visar att sekulariseringen inneburit stora förändringar på det religiösa området. Studiens syfte var att beskriva hur präster inom Svenska kyrkan i Gävle uppfattade sekulariseringens påverkan. Fokus låg på att beskriva de kvalitativt olika uppfattningar som fanns, då dessa förhoppningsvis skulle ge en ökad och fördjupad vetskap kring sekulariseringens olika verkningar. Det empiriska materialet samlades in via kvalitativa intervjuer där åtta präster gav uttryck för sina uppfattningar. Studien visar på att kvalitativt olika uppfattningar fanns.

Förhållandet mellan modern gnosticism och New Age har visat sig vara oklar i den aktuella akademiska diskussionen. I denna studie gjordes ett försök att bringa en större ordning i denna aktuella akademiska diskussion. Huvudsyftet var att jämföra modern gnosticism och New Age utifrån några valda verk, och se vilka likheter och skillnader som fanns. Metoden som användes var deskription och komparation. Studien visade att det fanns både likheter och skillnader.

Before the autumn term 2011 the Swedish compulsory school adopted new syllabuses in relation to, inter alia, religion. Changes within the religion topic have historically been a heavily debated issue among decision-makers, interest groups and the church, where the role of the Christianity has been particularly controversial.The main purpose of this study is therefore to investigate how the Swedish compulsory school?s teaching of Christianity has changed over the years. I have in order to conduct this study applied a descriptive method as well as a content analysis. The Swedish compulsory school?s current and historical syllabuses in religion have served as basis for this study.The outcome of this study clearly shows that the Christianity has received less influence to the benefit of other topics.

The tradition of a strong church ruling in the Swedish society ages back to the very first start of Christianity reaching the country.  Due to the separation between the church and state in 2000 in Sweden, there have been a lot of changes. No longer would the church be able to influence the politics as it had been able to do before. Since Sweden is a democratic country, the decision had to be made in a voting amongst the parties. The purpose with this paper is to understand the argumentation made by the Swedish parties Socialdemokraterna, Kristdemokraterna and Centerpartiet. This has been made using a text analysis, which studies the argumentations made by the parties in their motions.

In this study emphasis was on pupils? expectations regarding beliefs and conceptions of life among teachers within the school subject of religion. Additionally this study also concentrated on the consequences of teachers? beliefs on their legitimacy and teaching. The study?s method was qualitative including semi-structured interviews in two separate schools.

This essay examines the role religion plays in kindergarten. Today, the Swedish kindergarten provides child care for a secular and multicultural society where religion is considered a private matter that should not influence government nor the policy documents of kindergarten and elementary school. According to a study by Jenny Berglund, there is a so-called Protestant bias present in the Swedish elementary school. Protestant bias is shaped by a ?marinade? of liberal Protestant Christianity and has an indirect influence on how other religions are described, how religion is defined and how concepts such as religion, tradition or culture are viwed.The study was also based on Ninian Smart?s dimensions of religion, whichcorrelates to Berglund?s theory on Protestant bias.

The purpose of this essay is to examine different conceptions of God children express in speech and image. The essay also concern how children's images of God are shaped in a secular and pluralistic society, such as Sweden. The children included in the investigation are in first and third grade in middle-sized Swedish town's primary school. In the essay, two methods are used, which is picture analysis and qualitative interviews. The material consists of 47 children's drawings and a smaller selection of interviews with the child's drawing as a starting point.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the new Swedish curriculum, GY11 brought with it changes to how non-religious world-views are presented in five different books in religious education, RE. The method used to analyze the material was a qualitative content analysis as well as counting the pages that dealt with secular world-views. This was later analyzed using philosopher Charles Taylors description and theory on Secularization. This was used to identify secular processes as well as to define wether the books definition and description of secular world-views using Taylors concept of ?exclusive humanism?.The research questions are:? What are the authors writing about when describing the secular world- views?? What differences and similarities are there between the different editions prior and after the implementation of the new curriculum, GY11?? Are the secular world-views presented in a way that is compatible with Taylors concept of ?exclusive humanism??The results that are being presented are, first of all that the change between the different editions are not big.

The title of this essay is Project: The Veil ? an investigation of the trends in the Swedish veil debate compared with the veil debate in France and Great Britain written by Cecilia Lindvall. The purpose of the paper is to analyze how the argument has been conducted by the Swedish politicians from the time when the veil was first recognized in Swedish media up until today. The questions I wanted to answer was each countries definition of the three concepts Secularization, freedom of religion and multiculturalism, how Islam as a faith with Muslims has developed in Sweden, France and Great Britain and each countries integration politics with the politicians attitude towards the veil. The method being used is a qualitative study with three kind of theories for analysis; two who derives from a feminist point of view where the first one advocates for the rights of each women, the second for the rights of religious groups and a third theory which discusses different models of integration logics.

The purpose of this essay is to describe and analyze the debate surrounding the construction of the 2011 years curriculum of the Swedish schools` religious studies. The debate is concerning whether or not Christianity should have a unique position in the curriculum against other religions. The method is to analyze the arguments by an argument analysis. The purpose is also to analyze the argumentation to see how Secularization and pluralism have influenced the debate and the different standpoints. The essays material consists of debate articles from the four largest news sites on the internet.The most common argument for Christianity?s unique position is that Christianity has had an important role in the development of the Swedish society, culture and literature and is therefore important knowledge for understanding the Swedish society.