The purpose of this paper is to present a newly initiated research project exploring young people’s ideas about a good life and the future in various educational contexts. This paper focuses on one study that examines conditions grounded in present education while pointing toward the future envisioned by ninth-grade students. The broader project adopts an interdisciplinary approach, and its results will contribute to the development of cross-curricular work between social science, religious education, and career counseling in diverse educational settings.

In the paper, we present findings from the first study within the project, which investigates young people’s conceptions of their future adult lives and what they consider important and meaningful. The discussion centers on how students construct narratives about everyday life, work, family, relationships, and living conditions, as well as what they themselves identify as significant.

The theoretical perspectives informing the project draw on discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003), the concept of “happy objects” (Ahmed, 2010), and forms of capital (Bourdieu, 1991), in relation to what students describe as important investments for the future.

The analysis of students’ narratives reveals opportunities and tensions between the demands and expectations of school and society and students’ dreams and aspirations. Consequently, the study relates to value-based education and teaching about existential questions and civic education.

The method employed in this study is based on a writing assignment completed by ninth-grade students in compulsory school. The assignment focused on topics related to everyday life and ideas about the future. This study draws on 41 narratives collected from three classes in Swedish compulsory schools during the spring semester of 2025. Through narrative discourse analysis, the study illuminates how young people envision the future in relation to contemporary social norms and ideals of a good life.

The results of this study will provide new insights into teaching content and practices concerning the good life, hope, and future aspirations. Furthermore, the study will contribute to education on these issues across various contexts, including social studies, religious education, values education, and career guidance.

Bodil Liljefors Persson and Frida WikstrandFaculty of Education and SocietyMalmö University

När FN:s allmänna förklaring om de mänskliga rättigheterna antogs 1948 bar världen fortfarande spåren av två förödande världskrig. Dokumentet gav ett löfte om fred, värdighet och universella rättigheter. Sedan dess har mänskliga rättigheter fungerat som moralisk kompass i rättssalar, klassrum, politiska förhandlingar och civilsamhällets kamp för rättvisa. Men i en tid då demokratier krymper, rättsstatliga principer utmanas och människor förlorar sina grundläggande friheter, väcks frågan om rättigheternas möjligheter på nytt.

Denna antologi samlar forskare från Kollegiet för mänskliga rättigheter vid Malmö universitet och visar hur idéer om rättigheter formas, förhandlas och omprövas – i utbildning och professioner, i barns vardag och på institutioner, i teorin och i praktiken. Här möts historia och samtid, juridik och pedagogik, etik, kultur, politik och filosofi. Med nedslag i allt från FN:s tillblivelseprocess till dagens digitala utmaningar, från barns delaktighet till naturens ställning i rättighetsdiskurser, öppnar boken för samtal om vad mänskliga rättigheter är – och vad de kan bli. Vi vill inspirera till ett fortsatt samtal om värdighetens gränser och rättigheternas möjligheter.

This book presents a broad and in-depth, research-based source for exploring how teaching controversial issues on ethics, values, and beliefs can be conducted in Religious Education. How may teachers conduct an objective and comprehensive education that respects children's and young people's divergent views, based on traditions and beliefs that characterize their background and family discourse and/or in personal standpoints? The chapters explore the development of pedagogical and didactical approaches, with special regard to the implementation of teaching on issues that may be experienced as sensitive and contentious. The chapters represent a variety of disciplinary fields, including philosophy, science of religion, ethics, intercultural education, values education, worldview education, and social sustainability. The book may serve as course literature in Teacher education, and in in-service training for teachers.

In this chapter, ongoing discussions on powerful knowledge and democratic and inclusive practices are related to teaching existential questions and core values in religious education. In classrooms where both multi-religiousness and secularity characterize the students’ everyday life, it is urgent to offer the students possibilities to discuss norms and values, since they constantly move between various multicultural contexts. The students should be given the opportunity to reflect on questions of core values, ethics, and morality as well as to discuss what democracy, solidarity, equality, and inclusion can mean. One way for teachers to work with these questions is to focus partly on subject literacy and on powerful knowledge in relation to inclusive teaching, partly on a subject content where existential questions and a plurality of norms and core values are expressed together with controversial issues.

This chapter strive to contribute to ongoing epistemological and didactical discussions in religious education and by working with democratic practices such as deliberative conversations in relation to controversial issues, the content of conflicts is made visible, and the possibility for students to develop and assess their own opinions, as well as to recognize and respect each other’s diverse identities increase. Thereby, they may also gain an increased knowledge and understanding and consider new perspectives on various sensitive or complex questions. It is the aim of this chapter to explore and illuminate these issues and thus to contribute to the development of epistemological contexts of the subject religious education.

This contribution has two purposes. It aims at grasping Indigenous religions with an emphasis on Maya religious discourse seen in long term perspective and aims to give examples of how teaching about ecology, sustainability and global ethics and values can benefit from connecting to Indigenous religious traditions rituals within Religious Education. Questions of powerful knowledge and religious literacy are also discussed in this context.

Central themes in Maya cosmology, mythology and rituals will be highlighted together with the viability of Maya view on nature, agriculture, ecology and thus sustainability. Local knowledge of agriculture and ethnobotany, as well as ritual healing ceremonies are handed down from ancient traditions and still visible in present everyday life. These ritual practices today still communicate meaning and spirituality in the Maya area.

Knowledge of Indigenous religions and spirituality, exemplified by the case of Maya cosmology and ritual practices, will deepen understanding of processes of change and permanence and thus of sustainability. The objective is to emphasise the importance of integrating questions of sustainability and ecology in RE classrooms and to encourage future teachers in RE to develop their knowledge on the relations between religion(s) and sustainability.