Vad är demokratiskt? : En diskursanalys av svenska religionskunskapslärares tal om skolans demokratiska uppdrag.

Sammanfattning

The aim of this study is to contribute to an increased understanding of how six teachers of non-confessional religious education (RE) in compulsory schools in Sweden articulate the democratic mission of schooling, and how this mission is constructed through dominant discourses. The study addresses two research questions: What dominant discourses emerge in RE teachers´talk about the democratic mission, and how teacher and student positions are constructed through dominant discourses? The study is grounded in a discourse-theortical perspective and is based on individual interviews with sex RE teachers in southern Skåne. Through a discourse-analytical approach, central nodal points, discourses, and subject positions activated in teachers' accounts of the democratic mission are identified. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that the democratic mission is primarily constructed through five dominant discourses: the qualification discourse, the socialization discourse, a paradoxical tolerance discourse, the teacher discourse, and the participation discourse. These discourses produce different subject positions for both teachers and students, thereby shaping the conditions under which the democratic mission is understood and enacted in everyday school practice. According to the interviewees, students are often positioned as future democratic subjects in need of knowledge, moral upbringing, or maturity, while teachers are positioned as norm-bearers, boundary-setters, and custodians of democratic values. These discourses are analyzed in relation to Biestas's three educational functions: qualification, socialization, and subjectification. The findings of this study indicate that qualification and socialization are prioritized, whereas opportunities for subjectification appear limited. The study highlights how the democratic mission of schooling risks being reduced to the transmission of knowledge and normative socialization, rather than functioning as an arena for shared democratic practice and critical negotiation. To conclude, the study contributes a critical understanding of how the democratic mission and democracy itself are constructed in school practice, and of the power relations and normative dimensions that shape this study.