Bilden av världsreligioner i historieläroböcker : en innehållsanalys av hur religioner framställs i två historieläroböcker på gymnasiet

Sammanfattning

This study aimed to map how much space is given to the five world religions in two textbooks used to teach history 1b at high school in Sweden, as well as how these are presented based on Jackson's theoretical perspective of representation. Part of the questions discussed had a descriptive nature and were used to investigated how much space was given to religions in the study material. With a deductive approach, Jackson's model describing concepts of religious tradition, group, individual, bounded systems of belief and personal and flexible model was used to see similarities and differences in how different religions were presented in the textbooks. Through a qualitative content analysis, the material was analyzed based on the categories controlling and developing, which had been derived from the coded material based on an inductive working method. The results show that there is little variation in the context in which the religions are presented, and that there is an imbalance in how much space is given to them. Comparing the results against the background of Jackson's theoretical perspective of representation, the results further shows that it is only Christianity that is presented based on all of Jackson’s three levels (religious tradition, group and individual). The overall picture of how the five largest world religions are presented in the material therefore, cannot be understood based on a personal flexible model for teaching.