Transition in RE in Finland

In this chapter, we will discuss key questions regarding religious education in Finnish state schools today. Recent years have shown that issues related to dialogue, citizenship skills, social integration have moved into the forefront when discussing religious education (Jackson 2014a). Similarly, several researchers have analysed the challenges that diversification, secularisation and post-secularity create for education in religions and non-religious worldviews in Finnish state schools (Ubani et al. 2019a). When we refer to Finnish society in a post-secular context, we do not wish to overstate the rising impact of religion in Europe, but acknowledge the resurgence of public religion and the emergence of an increasingly pluralistic public sphere in Finland too. We convey criticism of the secular normativity of schools and of the liberal-secular foundation of the mainstream approaches of multicultural education, which have emerged against a backdrop of the notion of post-secularity (Coulby and Zambeta 2008; Ubani 2013a). In the Nordic context too, scholars have criticised the othering of non-secular and non-Western worldviews in educational thinking and practices (see e.g. Berglund 2017; Poulter et al. 2016).Peer reviewe

Keeping doors open: transnational families and curricular nationalism

This paper reviews sociological literature to explore the challenge transnational populations pose for nation-based curriculum, and vice versa. With increasing access to dual citizenship and temporary migration, more people are living transnational lifestyles. This poses new challenges in raising the transnational child. Transnationalism has emerged ‘bottom-up’ from individualised choices and circumstances rather than ‘top-down’ through institutional strategy. As a result, education sectors are yet to respond with a reoriented curriculum that can accommodate polycentric lives. This paper adapts Beck’s critique of methodological nationalism and proposes a parallel concept in the curricular nationalism underpinning much official curriculum. It then reviews literature reporting on three curricular experiments that seek to cultivate citizenships above and beyond the nation. While such transcendent designs on citizenship unsettle curricular nationalism, they fail to address the specificities of transnational child’s memberships both here and there. The pedagogic principle of ‘connectedness’ is retooled as a pragmatic way forward

Some ethnic Swedish students’ discourses on religion : secularism par excellence

Having been almost abandoned during the latter part of the 1900s, religion and youth is currently a growing field of research in Europe. Since people thought that secularisation would eradicate religion as a phenomenon, there was obviously no major reason to investigate young people’s attitudes towards religion. Since that time, the understanding of the world and its complex relationship with religion has changed, and this now attracts much discussion. In Europe, this not only concerns religion and youth among different migrant groups, but also research on religion and youth of those born and raised in Europe itself and integrated into the historic majority. The aim of this paper is to revisit and reanalyse the results of two qualitative research projects based on interviews with young students in schools who identify themselves as Swedish. I analyze their discursive constructions on their own religion and the religions of ‘others’. The data point towards a strong secularist discourse, where the Swedish students identify themselves as having a modern and rational worldview. On the other hand, they regard religion and religious people as old-fashioned and irrational. The focus in this article concerns articulations constructing this overarching secularist discourse, which I discuss in light of the contemporary debate on secularisation and secularism. However, most of the young students in the research appreciated the subject of Religious Education in Sweden as a means towards understanding the world. This was especially so in discussions on Religious Education with upper secondary school students, whereas younger students found religion to be more boring and traditional; thus the subject having difficulties in relating to the younger students’ experiences.First Online: 31 May 2017</p