Sweden’s protests against Islamophobia highlight the polarised views of Swedish citizens toward Muslims

Protests took place in Sweden at the turn of the year following a number of arson attacks on mosques in the country. Jenny Berglund writes on Sweden’s Muslim community and the varying attitudes among the Swedish population toward Islam. She notes that while there is evidence of increasing numbers of hate crimes against Swedish Muslims, the picture is complex, with a strong body of public opinion existing which is supportive of religious freedom and immigration

Swedish religion education: Objective but Marinated in Lutheran Protestantism?

In this article, I use the experience of a Czech doctoral student to discuss why religion education in Sweden can be understood as both deeply Lutheran and at the same time neutral and objective. In doing this, I look at the present syllabus in religion education, point to some of the changes that have been made in relation to the previous syllabus, and highlight some of the controversies that arose when it was written in 2010. I also put Swedish religion education and Swedish educational system in a historical context, pointing to its relation to liberal theology and cultural Protestantism. In addition, I present how teacher education is organized for religion education teachers and how the academic Study of Religions has been an important part of this during recent decades. At the end of the article I reflect upon the protestant taste of Sweden’s ‘non-denominational and neutral’ religion education

In the Child’s Best Interest: Analyzing Pedagogical Approaches among Teachers of the Qur’an in Norway

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.In this article, we explore pedagogical approaches in Islamic Supplementary Education (ISE) in Norway by presenting the narratives of two Qur’an teachers. Drawing inspiration from narrative research and microhistory, we examine their stories and experiences of teaching ISE in the context of an increasingly multireligious society. When we employ Watts’ dimensions of religious scripture and Rosowskys concept of faith literacy, we find that the teachers advocate for various dimensions of the Qur’an in relation to the knowledge deemed most beneficial for Muslim children in Norway. Finally, we explore the potential implications of our findings for teachers in mainstream education.publishedVersio

Islamic Education in secular society: examples from Northern Europe

-State-funded Muslim schools have since the 1980s emerged in Europe. In several countries, there among the Nordic ones, there has been considerable debate about these schools. In Norway, the only Muslim school closed down in 2004 after a couple of years, but at least two schools that have received permission to start in 2012. In Denmark, who has the longest tradition of Muslim schools among the Nordic countries, there has been considerable attention given to these schools and acquisitions of extremist teaching. In Sweden, the debate about these schools was very intense for a while. In recent years, since the National Agency of Education has intensified the control of all religious schools, the debate about Muslim schools has calmed down. In Finland, where Muslims have the right to Islamic Religious Education (IRE) in public schools, there are no Muslim schools. In this paper I describe and compare the establishment of Muslim schools in the Nordic countries. Since my own research concerns Muslim schools in Sweden and the content of Islamic religious education (IRE), there will be a special emphasis on the Swedish situation.309-32

“It is like living in a diminishing world”: older persons’ experiences of living with long-term health problems – prior to the STRENGTH intervention

Introduction: Ageing is often associated with multiple long-term health problems influencing older persons’ well-being in daily living. It is not unusual that the point of interest in research is often on the management of the actual health problem instead of being holistic and person-centred. Purpose: To describe the phenomenon of living with long-term health problems that influence daily living, from the older persons’ perspective. Methods: Qualitative individual interviews were conducted with 34 older persons living with long-term health problems. The data were analysed using a Reflected Lifeworld Research (RLR) approach, grounded in phenomenology. Results: Life with long-term health problems entails living in a diminishing world. It entails living in uncertainty, not being able to trust one’s own ability. The freedom to make decisions of your own is deprived by relatives and health-care providers. Living with long-term health problems entails being dependent on support in daily life and a strive to maintain meaningfulness in daily living. Conclusions: The results address a need for extended individual and holistic guidance and support in living with long-term health problems to increase the older person’s sense of well-being and meaning in life

Intervention with feedback using Outcome Questionnaire 45 (OQ-45) in a Swedish psychiatric outpatient population. A randomized controlled trial.

Aim: The objective of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of the Outcome Questionnaire 45 (OQ-45) with feedback in a Swedish psychiatric outpatient population using a randomized controlled design. Method: In all 1720 patients made at least one regular visit to the clinics in the period 12 February 2007 to 10 February 2008 and received information about the study. Of these, 374 patients (22%) agreed to participate. After written consent, 188 patients were randomized to the feedback group and 186 patients to the control group. Those constituted the intention-to-treat (ITT) group. Two hundred and sixty-two patients (70%) completed the OQ-45 questionnaire at least twice, and they were included in the per-protocol analysis. Those who improved less than expected and were at risk for treatment failure were called alerted patients. Results: There was a tendency that patients who received feedback improved more than the controls in OQ-45 total score. In the ITT analysis, the P-value was 0.061 and the effect size g = 0.21. In the per-protocol analysis the P-value was 0.076 and the effect size g = 0.24. In the intervention group, 27% of the patients were alerted because of risk of treatment failure vs. 28% in the control group (reaching level of alertness). The OQ-45 differences between the intervention and control groups did not significantly differ for patients who were alerted/reaching level of alertness and for non-alerted patients (g = 0.17 and g = 0.28, respectively). Conclusions: The feedback group had a tendency to improve more than the control group, possibly indicating that the method is effective, and the result (basically) supports previous findings

Mannanase hydrolysis of spruce galactoglucomannan focusing on the influence of acetylation on enzymatic mannan degradation

Background: Galactoglucomannan (GGM) is the most abundant hemicellulose in softwood, and consists of a backbone of mannose and glucose units, decorated with galactose and acetyl moieties. GGM can be hydrolyzed into fermentable sugars, or used as a polymer in films, gels, and food additives. Endo-β-mannanases, which can be found in the glycoside hydrolase families 5 and 26, specifically cleave the mannan backbone of GGM into shorter oligosaccharides. Information on the activity and specificity of different mannanases on complex and acetylated substrates is still lacking. The aim of this work was to evaluate and compare the modes of action of two mannanases from Cellvibrio japonicus (CjMan5A and CjMan26A) on a variety of mannan substrates, naturally and chemically acetylated to varying degrees, including naturally acetylated spruce GGM. Both enzymes were evaluated in terms of cleavage patterns and their ability to accommodate acetyl substitutions. Results: CjMan5A and CjMan26A demonstrated different substrate preferences on mannan substrates with distinct backbone and decoration structures. CjMan5A action resulted in higher amounts of mannotriose and mannotetraose than that of CjMan26A, which mainly generated mannose and mannobiose as end products. Mass spectrometric analysis of products from the enzymatic hydrolysis of spruce GGM revealed that an acetylated hexotriose was the shortest acetylated oligosaccharide produced by CjMan5A, whereas CjMan26A generated acetylated hexobiose as well as diacetylated oligosaccharides. A low degree of native acetylation did not significantly inhibit the enzymatic action. However, a high degree of chemical acetylation resulted in decreased hydrolyzability of mannan substrates, where reduced substrate solubility seemed to reduce enzyme activity. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that the two mannanases from C. japonicus have different cleavage patterns on linear and decorated mannan polysaccharides, including the abundant and industrially important resource spruce GGM. CjMan26A released higher amounts of fermentable sugars suitable for biofuel production, while CjMan5A, producing higher amounts of oligosaccharides, could be a good candidate for the production of oligomeric platform chemicals and food additives. Furthermore, chemical acetylation of mannan polymers was found to be a potential strategy for limiting the biodegradation of mannan-containing materials.This work was funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation through the Wallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC), which is gratefully acknowledged. FV and AMA also thank the Swedish Research Council (Project 621-2014-5295 to FV) for the financial support

The teaching of Islam in Scandinavia

Introductio