This article reports the experiences of religion-related dialog among 24 Swedish students and their teacher in religion education. All students had immigrant backgrounds from the Middle East and all of them had strong religious convictions. By using qualitative analysis to reveal their experiences with dialog in school, the concept of “safe space” is critically discussed. The students’ educational environment was not a “safe space” when it came to religion-related dialog, in part because historical and political conflicts in the Middle East have an impact on students’ willingness to open up. The case study provides an example of the effects of the wider political and societal context on the micro-structure of classroom-interaction.

In contemporary western society, the changing religious diversity brought to the fore a more visible religion. The Swedish school and the Swedish classrooms are no exception. From a perspective of sensemaking and a wide understanding of religion and religious positions this thesis analyses the discourse on religion among pupils (age 9 to 16) in the Swedish elementary school and under what circumstances they do, or do not, talk about religion with each another. 

This qualitative study includes themes from and contributes to the study of religion, research on children and young people, and particularly to religious education (RE) in Sweden and elsewhere. The results show that the pupils during the interviews showed different and parallel ways of understanding, relate to and way of talking about religion. However, to some degree they seemed to be unwilling to talk about religion with each other, even though they expressed some interest thereof. Two reasons for this were their limited common discourses on religion, and their concern and anxiety to create conflict and to “step on somebody’s toes”. The latter was also combined with their tendency to show tolerance, respect and deference towards each other. Thirdly, due to their partial lack of discourses on religion the pupils had difficulties to position themselves in relation to religion and to understand others. For instance, this came to the fore and was exemplified by the non-Christian Swedish pupils. They seemed to lack categories to speak of themselves in relation to religion and, for instance, answer questions like: “What do you believe in?”.

Even though the pupils did not talk much about religion with each other, the result shows that they had several ways of talking about and understanding religion and religious phenomena – for instance based on popular culture. Not all these understandings and discourses on religion where paid attention to in school or in class. Instead, the pupils had to adapt to discourses prevalent in school which narrowed the possible ways of understanding and talking about religion. In line with this, there were several positions in relation to religion – for instance unsure and uncertain positions – in these schools that was not observed. However, these pupils also have the need to express and understand themselves in relation to religion as well as being understood by others. This is a future challenge for RE-research as well as teaching in schools.

The results of this study show, lastly, that the experience and desires expressed by the pupils concerning talking about religion differed to a great extent from the use of dialogue in RE-research. Among the pupils it seemed that the conversation about religion was sacrificed on the altars of tolerance, respect and deference. These results were discussed in relation to the concept of safe space, a concept that needs to be elaborated and sharpened further in RE.

The paper explores children and youths? perceptions of the reasons for bullying in multicultural schools. How do their different backgrounds explain the variations in those perceptions? The questions will be answered based on data gathered from 9 to 10, 12 to 13 and 15 to 16-year-old students (N = 2781) in Estonia, Finland and Sweden. A survey and in-depth interviews were used in the study. About half of the students have been frequently or occasionally bullied. According to the data, the reasons for bullying were frequently attributed to visible external features, such as physical appearance or clothing, but also to the bullied students? choice of friends and language use. The most vulnerable students are those with a migration background, those who speak a different language at home that is not the language of the national majority, or who have been raised in more religiously observant families.

This article reports the experiences of religion-related dialog among 24 Swedish students and their teacher in religion education. All students had immigrant backgrounds from the Middle East and all of them had strong religious convictions. By using qualitative analysis to reveal their experiences with dialog in school, the concept of “safe space” is critically discussed. The students’ educational environment was not a “safe space” when it came to religion-related dialog, in part because historical and political conflicts in the Middle East have an impact on students’ willingness to open up. The case study provides an example of the effects of the wider political and societal context on the micro-structure of classroom-interaction.

This article links together the findings of the case studies reported in this special issue and reflects upon the possibilities and limitations of religion-related dialog in school education at a more systematic level. It also discusses the findings of the case studies in relation to other research and suggests some ideas for further investigation.

Den religiösa pluralismen har ökat markant i Sverige de senaste decennierna och mycket talar för att den kommer att fortsätta att öka. Skolan är en plats där barn och unga kommer samman oavsett religiös och kulturell tillhörighet.

I Det kommer inte på tal intervjuas ett 50-tal grundskoleelever om deras upplevelser och erfarenheter av religiös mångfald i skolan med syftet att förstå vilka processer som påverkar deras uppfattningar. Vilka omständigheter har betydelse för deras upplevelser? Vilken roll spelar föräldrar, skola och vänner? Och har barnets ålder betydelse för hens erfarenheter av religiös och kulturell pluralism? För att få en fördjupad förståelse för elevernas berättelse intervjuas också några lärare och rektorer.

Boken riktar sig till blivande lärare, skolpersonal i tjänst och andra som är intresserade av religiös och kulturell pluralism i skolan.