Textbooks are the most dominant literature used in schools and are therefore an important source of information. Consequently, it is crucial that these are not misleading or biased and maintain a high quality along with a strict concordance to the School Department’s curriculum. The aims of this study have been to examine how Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Hare Krishna are presented in four religion textbooks used in senior high schools, as well as to examine what type of knowledge is being presented in terms of epistemology. In addition, the aim has been to examine which religions are being presented and considered as alternative religions and appraise how much space they are granted in textbooks and discuss this in terms of concordance with curriculums.

As a method I have chosen a qualitative content analysis and since it has been of interest to observe similarities and differences between the textbooks it is a comparative study. This study has an epistemological standpoint, which will be a crossing of positivism and hermeneutics.

The results showed that some religions, including the study’s three focal religions, were considered as alternate in all of the textbooks. How often they were included varied and when they did they had limited space and would often have negative associations. Some textbooks expressed a positivistic epistemology, a type of knowledge that presented the alternate religions in terms of conclusive truths and facts. A presentation that appeared one-sided and it could be questioned how well it represented the actual beliefs of the members of the religions. Other textbooks conveyed a more hermeneutic view where understanding and versatility were stressed, a view that is more in line with curriculums.

Conclusively, the results showed that some of the textbooks are not meeting the standards the School Department have set forth in their curriculum for religion. Since textbooks are the most dominant literature they ought to have a leading position when constructing fundamental values for the students. However, when schools and textbooks are not expressing the same values a conflict emerges, a conflict that is not getting the attention it should and whose consequences are yet to be studied.