Understandings of Religion as Culture: Renegotiating Troublesome Concepts in Swedish ECEC Policy

The purpose of the book chapter is to investigate how religion and culture are presented in the Swedish kindergarten curriculum (Lpfö 18), seen in light of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The authors analyse how religion is implicitly or explicitly treated in these documents, and they look at how these overlapping concepts pose challenges in the educational practice.

The study shows that religion in Lpfö 18 is primarily understood as identity and worldview, and that practice does not receive the same attention. It contrasts with CRC, where religion is also understood as practice. Religion is not explicitly defined in Lpfö 18, which allows for many interpretations and can create educational dilemmas in how religion is dealt with in kindergartens. The authors propose an intercultural reading strategy for understanding religion as a key component of the cultural values and practices in Swedish kindergartens.

The authors used a text-based analysis method for comparative policy analysis. They analysed explicit references to religion and culture in Lpfö 18 and CRC. The analysis was conducted in several phases, including an identification phase to derive key concepts, followed by an inductive discovery phase where the overlap between religion and culture was explored.

Raivio, M., & Skaremyr, E. (2022). Understandings of Religion as Culture: Renegotiating Troublesome Concepts in Swedish ECEC Policy. I The Routledge International Handbook of the Place of Religion in Early Childhood Education and Care (s. 343–352). Routledge.