This book answers the question on how students and teachers talk about religion when the
mandatory and nonconfessional school subject of Religious Education is on the schedule in the
world's most secular country To do this it analyses discourses of religion as they occur in
the classroom practice. It is based on findings from participant observation of Religious
Education lessons in several upper secondary schools in Sweden. The book discusses different
aspects of the role and function of nonconfessional integrative Religious Education in an
increasingly pluralistic multireligious yet also secularized society at a general level. It
looks at the religious landscape different perspectives on school subjects various models and
the development of Religious Education and discourses of religion of a secularist spiritual
and nationalistic nature.Religious Education is a school subject that manoeuvres in the midst
of a field that on the one hand concerns crucial knowledge in a pluralistic society and on the
other hand deals with highly contested questions in a society characterized by diversity and
secularity. In the mandatory integrative and non-confessional school subject of Religious
Education in Sweden all students are taught together regardless of religious or secular
affiliation. The subject deals with major world religions important non-religious worldviews
and ethics from a non-confessional perspective. Thus in the classroom individuals who
identify with diverse religious and non-religious worldviews with a different understanding of
what religion could be and what it might mean to be religious are brought together. The book
examines questions raised in this pluralistic context: What discourses of religion become
hegemonic in the classroom? How do these discourses affect the possibility of reaching the aim
of Religious Education which concerns understanding and respect for different ways of thinking
and living in a society characterized by diversity?
