This essay searches to examine religious education (RE) in Swedish primary school through a comparison to the teaching of the same subject in Germany. The perspective used is the one of the teacher, and the methods and content of religious teaching have been investigated by interviews and a minor study of the curricula of RE in both nations. The three central concepts of teaching RE, defined by Michael Grimmit, operate as a mould for the findings to be organized after.

The purpose is not to investigate the knowledge of religions among pupils, but to compare two different methods of RE, both being used in two secularized North European nations, and how they are practically performed by six teachers. The respondents’ experiences of their mission will be the focal point of the study, but didactics methods of RE have also been an important part of  the literary synthesis as well as of the interviews. A survey of which cathegories of methods were described in the interview will be presented in a chart.

The synthesis of the respondents’ reflections suggests that the experience of the professional mission varies between the teachers teaching confessionally and those teaching unconfessionally. The first include in their charge to breed their pupils into the culture and heritage of their religion, and guide them into living within it. The second stress their target as objective founders of knowledge, responsible to offer varying views of the world and society.

The collective opinion among the respondents was however that to be able to interact well in a society of multiple religions, the pupils need to reach substantial knowledge of the religions of the world, including other outlooks on life, and develop understanding and tolerance for their neighbours.