Paper short abstract:

Leisure-time centres could be characterized as post-Christian, which means that Christian holidays have been redefined and lost their religious content. This leads to uncertainty in how it can be talked about. Issues concerning how teachers deal with religion in post-Christian schools are discussed.

Paper long abstract:

As public spaces, Swedish schools and leisure-time centres are often characterized by a post-Christian attitude, which means that Christian holidays and the performance of Christian rituals have been redefined and lost their religious content in the school context. Just as the school often finds it difficult to recognize post-national youth, because it is born out of nationalism and ideas about the creation and maintenance of the nation, pupils or teachers with religious identities hence cause certain problems. Their presence challenges the post-Christian attitude. This creates challenges for the leisure-time centre teachers as leaders, the school as an organization and the relationship between teacher and pupil, or pupil and pupil.

In my presentation, I will discuss issues concerning how leisure-time centre teachers deal with religion in a post-Christian context. Many studies have dealt with religious education in the classroom context or, as in my own previous study, the study visit context. Significantly fewer studies have been interested in the contexts where the relationship to religion is more open and less regulated. How do leisure-time centre teachers work with issues concerning religion? By analysing it from a perspective concerning post-Christianity, it becomes interesting to try to understand what is perceived as viable and what is perceived as confessional and thus problematic (in municipal schools).