Religionen i klass(!)rummet
En studie om betydelsen av klass i elevers tal om religion och religionsundervisningen pa? gymnasiet.
Sweden has been characterized as one of the world?s most secular countries, even though it is becoming increasingly more multicultural. This, combined with the fact that pupils do not feel they have enough time in school for Religious Education and that the requirements are increasing made me interested in how they talk about religion in upper secondary school. The aim of this study is to see if there are any differences between how pupils in vocational programs and academic programs are talking about religion and Religious Education. The main questions that were raised revolved around 1) how pupils talk about what religion is, 2) how they talk about religion in the Swedish society and 3) how they talk about Religious Education in upper secondary school. The questions were also about what similarities and differences I could find in the way they talked about these subjects. The used data came from a qualitative study with four main focus groups with a total of 22 upper secondary pupils. The method used is a content analysis of focus groups with a thematic classification of the result. The thematic analysis is inspired from the method of discourse analysis, because the comparison is primarily based on how the different study programs are talking about religion in society and Religious Education. The theories I used were secularization theory based on Peter L. Berger and Pierre Bourdieu?s class theory of cultural capital. The result showed that there are similarities in what the pupils are talking about, but that there are differences in how they express themselves. For example the pupils in academic programs use a more elaborated terminology than the pupil?s in the vocational programs did. The study showed that the pupil?s cultural capital contributed to different ways of talking about religion in society and Religious Education, which complemented other differences in ways of talking related to the pupil?s gender and religiosity.