: ”Could religious education create bridges between people” Upper secondary students view on the meaning of religious education and the teachings in it

The overall aim of this study is divided into two parts, firstly to analyze the view of four swedish upper secondary school students on what the meaning with religious education in Sweden should be. Secondly, to analyze how these four students experience their education in religion and compare it with their teachers view on the meaning of religious education and how she conducts the teaching. It is an empirical study and the results are based on semistructural interviews made individually with each participant. The analytical approach is a hermeneutic analysis with interpretation as the main focus. The findings and the result of the study indicates that the swedish students view the religious education as an important subject to understand and explore their own worldviews, other peoples views, traditions and differences. The students and the teacher have similar thoughts on what the meaning with religious education should be, but in practise the students lack an inside perspective of religions, a meeting with people who identify themselves as religious. The teacher however does not include this in her education, nor does she speak of this during the interviews. The results also show that the swedish students thoughts about religious education is very similiar to what previous research has shown is lacking in the swedish education in religion. In summary, both the students and previous research points out that the inside perspective in religious education is very important to be able to reach the goals of the curriculom in the subject, which include a development of understanding different religions and people