In the context of humanistic Bildung-centred Didaktik, the educational potential of different school subjects is emphasized. But how can different school subjects collectively contribute to the ‘cultivation-of-human-powers’ and Bildung with a focus on sustainability? In this article, seven different school subjects are compared. Eleven teacher educators from Malmö University, Sweden, have written scholarly about the roles of their respective school subjects for Bildung and sustainability. Drawing from the texts related to the seven school subjects – geography, mathematics, physical education and health, religious education, science for citizenship, Swedish as a second language, and visual arts – a comparative analysis was conducted. The primary focus was to understand the unique characteristics of each school subject, explore their epistemic differences, and discern their potential roles in fostering cross-curricular didactics for Bildung and sustainability. It is shown that the different school subjects collectively provide complementary contributions to contemporary Bildung and climate change literacy.

How can a secular democratic state inform its fundamental values to migrants with past affiliation in societies marked by religious norms and values? In Sweden, migrants are offered a (non-compulsory) course in civic orientation. Research has shown a need for professionalization of this type of education. A dimension of professionalization can, we urge, be described in terms of religious literacy. The development of a course in civic orientation, where norms and values are discussed with respect to human rights, presupposes that methods are developed to draw attention to the complexity, and the ambiguity, of relations between religious and secular ethical positions. Teachers need knowledge of religiously motivated beliefs in ethical issues and of ways in which these are made visible in the multidimensional practice of lived religion. Sweden, perceived as a highly secular country, has taken in many migrants from countries with traditional religious values. Through interviews, the Institute for Future Studies has identified some areas where religiosity is one parameter for the way these people rethink ethically relevant perceptions. These are values of self-determination and the individual’s own choices – such as abortion, divorce, premarital sex and homosexuality, and with those contiguous rights that are perceived as non-negotiable in the secular democratic discourse. This chapter analyses the secular state’s mission to inform new arrivals about democratic values in relation to human rights in the Swedish discourse. The analysis is based on a multidimensional understanding of the concept of religious literacy, with reference to a discussion about the distinction between having a right to live with or without religion. One aim is to explore challenges and opportunities to discern in the current discourse how religion can contribute to the development of the secular state and how secular value teaching can contribute to the development of religious approaches to human rights.

In this article, the focus is to grasp ongoing discussions regarding powerful knowledgein relation to social sciences in a broader sense, but especially in relation to religious education.Discussions around norms and values are central in classrooms where both multireligiousness andsecularity characterize students’ everyday life and where students constantly move between differentmulticultural contexts. It is the aim of this contribution to explore the ongoing discussions relatingpowerful knowledge in RE to existential questions and controversial issues. One way for teachers towork with these goals is to focus partly on subject literacy and on powerful knowledge in relationto inclusive teaching, and partly on subject content where core value issues are expressed togetherwith existential and controversial questions. This will be discussed and explored in this contributionfocusing on powerful knowledge and epistemology in social science, and especially in the schoolsubject of religious education.

Denna antologi erbjuder forskningsbaserade och didaktiska perspektiv på religion och samhällsförändringar. Antologin är resultatet av ett samarbete mellan forskare från flera olika discipliner vid Malmö universitet och visar på den mångfald av forskningsperspektiv som ryms inom ämnesområdet religionsvetenskap i Sverige idag.

Antologin vänder sig till studenter och verksamma lärare samt en vidare intresserad läsekrets som önskar få tillgång till aktuell forskning och fördjupa sin ämnesteoretiska kunskap. Genom fyra teman belyses aktuella perspektiv på brännande frågor inom samtida religionsvetenskaplig forskning: Religion, kön och sexualitet, Religion, unga och skola, Religion, möten och förändringar samt Religion, politik och samtid.

I en samtid som präglas av ständigt pågående förändring är religion och livsåskådningsfrågor synnerligen aktuella. Mötet mellan historiska traditioner och nutida samhällsutveckling visar hur inte bara religiösa rörelser, utan också människors trosuppfattningar och identiteter, omtolkas och förändras över tid. Undervisningen i religionskunskap i grund- och gymnasieskolan utgår från att kunskap om religion och andra livsåskådningar är central för vår förståelse av en omvärld som i allt större utsträckning präglas av mångfald och förändring.