In Sweden and in other parts of Europe, the nature of religious education (RE) and its place in schools is the subject of ongoing discussions. Concepts used in the RE classroom can either open or close classroom conversations. A growing consensus can be observed among researchers that the concept of 'religion' is not sufficient to describe -- and…

In which ways do curricula recognize existential questions of compulsory school students, and what direction is given regarding how to address them? By asking these two questions, this study analyses syllabi for the school subject of religion education and its equivalents in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and in the two German regions of Bavaria and…

During the twentieth century, an increasing amount of data was collected in connection with engineering of the modern states including their education systems. In the Nordic welfare states post WW2, such data were also generated in experimental projects aiming at reforming curriculum and education, and the data were accumulated either as…

Different approaches to religion education have been in place for a long time or developed more recently to meet growing religious and cultural plurality in European countries and schools. In this article, I summarise and discuss basic principles for a study-of-religion(s) approach to religion education, adding arguments and perspectives from…

It was in the late nineteenth century that teaching in Sweden's elementary schools began its transformation from a religious education to a broader, national citizenship education that included history and geography. International research has pointed to a connection between the introduction of school inspections and the reform of public education…

Different representations of "Swedishness," as expressions of altered kinds of imagined kinship in the Swedish educational system during the first half of the 20th century, are discussed. It is argued that even though the curriculum changed, from a more religious one focusing on fostering loyalty and moral commitment to "God, the…

In the almost two decades that have passed since the Swedish parliament declared that Sweden is a multicultural society, debates about immigrants, about multiculturalism and about different ways of being a citizen have raged. So far there has been no stepping away from the declaration. In the rhetorical arena multiculturalism is still a word with…

The aim of this article is to present a unique corpus of film-recorded classroom observations of sixth-grade classes (age 12-13) in the Swedish cities of Gothenburg, Partille and Trollhättan in the late 1960s. The material documents how RE could be taught in Swedish schools in line with the curriculum of Lgr 62 which internationally was an early…

This article presents some major research themes and findings of the leading Swedish research group in the field of literacy in history. The informal and encouraging leadership of Professor Egil Johansson was of vital importance to the creativity and productivity of the group. Prior to 1985, a few large projects on Swedish alphabetization were…

Early tendencies of peace education in Sweden are discussed in this document. The time span is from the second part of the 19th century to the beginning of World War II. Peace education put special emphasis on exposing the contradiction between religious and history education. Religious education preached love and reconciliatory spirit, while…

The Volume 1 Commissioner of Education's introduction discusses school and college enrollment and presents state common-school statistics on enrollment, average daily attendance, teachers and salaries, revenues and expenditures, and expenditures in Southern states by race. Report chapters address education in Great Britain and Ireland,…