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This chapter originates from the educational reform of Swedish upper secondary school in 2011, where the focus for religious studies education changed from being based on different religious perspectives, various existential questions, and pupil-initiated questions to an emphasis based on a scientific-rational content, with an exceptional position for Christianity in relation to other world religions. The aim of the chapter is twofold. The first purpose is to clarify the subject scientific approach and its exceptional position for Christianity in relation to other world religions mean for the socializing dimension in upper secondary education. The second purpose is to illuminate how teachers in religion education studies respond to and handle existential and pupil-related questions that emerge during the lessons. Given both the historical study on the purpose of religious study education and the interview study focusing on a common educational dilemma, the objective perspective, based only on facts, risks losing its relevance for the pupils if the teacher does not nuance the images of different beliefs and their forms of expression and considers a student-oriented perspective. Hence the teacher must keep the balance between what they must do and what they want to do to fulfill their assignment in situ. 

Sweden has been recognised as one of the most generous countries in terms of the governance of migration and asylum. The 2015 “refugee crisis” placed the Swedish migration and asylum system under extreme pressure when more than 163,000 refugees arrived in 2015. Like other EU members, Swedish migration policies have become gradually more restrictive, legitimised by the discourse of securitisation, whereby migration is addressed as a threat. By taking “securitisation” as a conceptual point of departure, the aim of this chapter is to analyse the official statements and non-official motives behind the securitisation turn of Sweden’s post-2015 migration policy and relate them to the vulnerable situation unaccompanied immigrants experienced when they came to Sweden in 2015 as refugees and asylum seekers. However, even if some of the interviewees had experienced racism and other negative attitudes and felt ill at ease waiting for their residency permit, unaccompanied immigrants are not necessarily vulnerable victims without the capacity and will to learn a new language, educate themselves and find a job.

This article departs from the educational reform of upper secondary school 2011, and the changing in the curricula for religion studies education. Our theoretical point of departure is inspired by Ivor Godson's and Thomas Popkewitz's understanding of a school subject and its relation to socialisation. In relation to their understanding of a school subject and its socializing role, we see a didactical implication that the subject of religious study education will fall back to transferring knowledge that is easy to teach, control, assess, and grade. We wonder how teachers in religion education studies respond to, and handle existential and pupil related questions in the classroom when they, for example, are addressed with questions about life and death, the environmental crisis or global poverty, even if there is no scheduled time for such matters. To answer this question, we have interviewed eleven religion education teachers from different programs in upper secondary school about how they consider the subject, its content and purpose and how this materialises in their teaching. The conclusions we could draw from our interviews are that most of the teachers try to be open and respond to existential and pupil-initiated questions, even if there is no scheduled time for this, while others focuses on facts about the Abrahamitic religions. 

In this article we take a closer look at the relation between general didactics and civic studies education through a critical analysis of civic studies syllabuses in primary education, in order to illuminate some general motives that legitimizes the role and content of general didactics. It seems to us that the idea of general didactics in Sweden either is about learning theories for instruction, regardless the subject, or to emancipate the democratic potentiality of the subject. In his article, we focus on the latter: First we present our theoretical perspective. With the help from Klafki’s understandings of school as an engaging part of democratic society we discern two aspects of general didactics. In relation to education, one emanates from democracy and learning, and the other springs from democratic virtues and political action. Secondly, and with these two understandings in mind, we engage in a critical reading of the Curriculum for compulsory school (LGR 11) and the syllabuses for civic studies in primary education in order to trace some similarities that might give civic studies a central position for democratic socialization in general. Thirdly, and through our analysis, we reach the conclusion that, due to the similarities between the curricula and syllabus when it comes to foster the democratic subject, the pupil risks not only to be evaluated and graded subject wise, but also for his or her democratic disposition.

Syftet med vår text är att utmana generaliserande bilder av pedagogiskt ledarskap med hjälp av Martin Bubers dialogfilosofi, där ”äkthet” samt skillnaden mellan ordparen ”Jag-Du” och ”Jag-Det” är centralt. Vanligtvis förefaller ledarskapsstilen existera före människan och fångar varken personens äkthet eller de faktiska relationerna som utspelar sig i en pedagogisk situation. I Bubers termer går dessa ledarskapsmodeller att placera in i ordparet ”Jag-Det” snarare än i ”Jag-Du”. Ordparet Jag-Det kännetecknas av ett förhållningssätt där subjektet reduceras till ett Det – ett objekt bland andra. Detta förhållningssätt förhindrar en ömsesidig relation där subjektet lyfts framsom ett Du – ett jämlikt subjekt. Enligt Buber finns det möjligheter för äkta dialog även där det finns en obalans mellan personers positioner i en viss miljö, förutsatt att personerna accepterar varandra som jämlika och tillåts att vara ”dem de är”. Även om detta tillsynes är svårt visar vi med Bubers dialogfilosofi att det är möjligt att utmana konventionella uppfattningar om pedagogiskt ledarskap genom att visa att personens vara kommer före ledarskapets vara och vad detta får för implikationer för högre utbildning.

Vad lär man sig alltså känna av Duet? Ingenting alls. Ty man kan inte lära känna det.Vad vet man alltså om Duet? Bara allt. Ty man vet inte längre något enskilt om det.(Buber, 2004/1954, s. 17)