Religiös mobbning i skolan : Lika illa som elevernas upplevelse? Lärares uppfattning om förekomsten av religiösa kränkningar i det svenska klassrummet

Sammanfattning

This study aims to research the individual perspectives and reflections of teachers of religious studies in Swedish schools, focusing on the occurrence of bullying caused because of religious reasons. The study researches the perceived presence of religious bullying and harassment at school, how it is expressed, as well teachers' perception of the environmental reaction to religious bullying. The purpose is to understand the individual perspective to better understand how teachers view and understand situations related to religious bullying and harassment and aims to investigate how these understandings correlate with previous studies, as well as student perspectives. The findings of the research indicate that most teachers do not perceive a large amount of religious bullying or harassment occurring at school. Most teachers did not perceive any religious harassment whatsoever, while others only perceived a minimal amount. The teachers with Swedish heritage perceived less bullying, in comparison to one teacher of non-Swedish heritage who perceived more bullying. The non-Swedish teacher also spoke about systemic religious harassment. The teachers all defined bullying and harassment relatively similar, but with slight key differences. All teachers spoke about the importance of acting immediately in a situation involving harassment, as well as the importance of dialogue with the students, and for a safe space to speak while trying to resolve any issues. They also spoke about the importance of using knowledge and facts to rid students of misinformation and to encourage curiosity to prevent an environment which breeds and accepts religious harassment. The study finds that the result of this study (the minimal presence of religious bullying and harassment in schools from a teacher's perspective) partially does not correlate with previous studies which has shown a clear presence of religious bullying and harassment in schools. This study's result seems to oppose many student-focused studies which focuses on personal experiences of harassment. This has identified a possible research gap between the teacher and the student perspective which must be further researched. The teachers of this study discuss possible causes, such as harassment being moved to social media and becoming harder to notice, to religious bullying being less present in their schools because of their educational efforts of promoting tolerance, as examples. One point of interest which was discovered was how growing up in Sweden with its focus on "secular neutrality" sometimes seems to limit a teacher's ability to understand and identify religious bullying.