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.

Forskning visar att föräldrars utbildningsnivå är en av de starkaste faktorer som påverkar elevens skolresultat. Detta kapitel handlar om hur en grupp unga elever, som trots knappa sociala och kulturella resurser, klarar av skolan med goda studieresultat. Vi är särskilt intresserade av att se vilka gemensamma egenskaper elever från hem utan utbildningsvana tillskriver de lärare som enligt dem har bidragit till att de lyckas med sina studier, och vad dessa lärare gjorde för att sporra dem till att engagera sig i skolarbetet. Resultatet bygger på 23 intervjuer med gymnasieungdomar från hem utan utbildningsvana, och på teorier om habitus och sociala rum, för att förstå hur dessa unga använder och knyter an till lärare för att klara skolan med höga betyg. Utifrån vårt teoretiska ramverk, och med ett särskilt fokus på hur dessa elever uppfattar sina lärare som viktiga resurser för en framgångsrik studiekarriär, lyckas vi fånga tre egenskaper hos lärare som spelar roll för elevernas skolgång: 1) uppmärksamhet och tydlighet, 2) motivation och bemötande, samt 3) förståelse och omtanke. Även om eleverna uppskattar olika kombinationer av lärarnas egenskaper, är det tydligt att den signifikanta läraren är engagerad och inspirerar eleverna att klara av skolan med höga betyg, samt en person de kan relatera till, både privat och känslomässigt. 

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 Goodson’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 question 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 question, even if there is no scheduled time for this, while others focuses on facts about the Abrahamitic religions

Denna rapport är resultat av ett samverkansprojekt mellan forskare från Mälardalens universitet och samordningsförbudnet RAR Sörmland. Projektet KLARA (https://rarsormland.se/insats/klara/) siktar på att öka utrikesföddas kvinnors integration på arbetsmarknaden och i övriga samhället.

In respect to the increased number of cases of research misconduct in Sweden, especially the Macchiarini case, a new national ethics legislation has been adopted. Following the previous and new legal acts and the Higher Ordinance for studies, Swedish universities have established qualitative measures to make sure that PhD students have knowledge about research ethics when graduating, for instance through offering third-cycle courses in research ethics. In this article, we describe how a Swedish university has been working with such a course to promote good research practice and ethical integrity to the researchers of tomorrow. We are doing this by describing the course structure and content, its outcome in relation to the legislation concerning misconduct in research and ethics within research, as a conscious reflection on research and its consequences. The results indicate that the course is in alignment with other scientists and/or rules and regulations.