Exemplets makt – när ett nytt ämnesinnehåll i religionskunskap realiseras i klassrummet

Abstract

As a part of the reformation of Swedish upper secondary education in 2011, a new topic was added to the RE syllabus. This topic concern religion and science, and students are expected to learn about different views on the relationship between religion and science. In the syllabus, ‘questions about creation and evolution’ is mentioned as an example but not as a mandatory topic. The aim of this article is to study how the topic ‘religion and science’ is implemented by the teachers and to discuss consequences regarding students learning. All teachers in the study chose to teach about the creation-evolution-controversy. They selected teaching materials representing different opinions in the controversy, mainly a Darwinian position represented by vocal atheists and a theistic-evolutionist position represented by Christians trying to reconcile the theory of evolution with a Christian faith. Students were given assignments where they were expected to read, analyse, and understand quite complicated discussions about the theory of evolution, science, and religion. Teachers claim that ‘religion and science’ is a difficult topic to teach and a great challenge for students to learn, but few have considered to choose other examples. The example mentioned in the syllabus, ‘questions about creation and evolution’, seems to have a strong impact on teaching, for better or for worse.