Whose Islam and Christianity?

The purpose of this paper has been to highlight how three different highschool textbooks portrays Christianity and Islam. The aim of the paper has been to higlight and pinpoint how the three different textbooks uses different angles and perspectives on recontextualization; which ergo in turn creates a different field of transferred knowledge from each individual textbook. The paper uses an applied model of Bernstein’s theory of recontexualization, and from it derives two analytical tools to process and make an analysis of the textbooks transferred knowledge. The first analytical methodical tool of Bernstein’s theory is positioning, which is used in the paper to highlight what the different textbooks value and evaluate different kinds of knowledge of Christianity and Islam. The second methodical tool used in the paper is structuring, which is used in the paper to highlight how the different textbooks portrays the knowledge of Christianity and Islam. Said’s theory of orientalism have also been used in the paper to further problematize the recontextualization displayed in the textbooks, which together with the papers’ methododical approach have formed the basis of the analysis of the textbooks transferred knowledge about Christianity and Islam. The three chosen textbooks are all in used in highschools in Stockholm, I have also conferred the Swedish curriculum LGY11, to compare and match if the transferred knowledge from the textbooks equates to the demands and knowledge requirements by the curriculum LGY11. The material used and analyzed in this paper is two Swedish and one English highschool textbooks. This material have formed the basis of the paper’s interpretation, analysis and problemazation which I have used basis to try to answer my thesis. The conclusions drawn from the paper is that the two Swedish textbooks uses an extensive positioning in their transferred knowledge about Christianty and islam, which together with the theory of orientalism work to position Christianity in a better light when comparing to Islam. The English textbook on the other hand uses structuring, to further explain and inform about the religions, this is turn creates a more balanced and neutral transfer of knowledge from the English textbook compared to the two Swedish textbooks. The paper has ergo shown that textbooks can therefore reinforce religious identities or create understanding in the transfer of knowledge to the pupil reading it. It is therefore crucial for the teacher to have a critical eye when choosing textbook. This in turn to create and further an understandning of different religions and to certify that the textbook do not reinforce and segregate cultural identities of the pupils in the classroom and ergo society as a whole.