Sexualitet, samtycke och relationer i religionskunskap. Lärares förhållningssätt till nya krav i läroplanen

Abstract

With the revision of the Swedish curriculum that takes place on 1 June 2022, the school's responsibility to communicate knowledge about sexuality, consent and relationships to its pupils is further emphasized. Even though the field of knowledge is not new in the Swedish curriculum, it has gone through a significant development in content since it first became a compulsory part of the Swedish curriculum. With an increasingly digitalized and informed society, new challenges follow, and it is perhaps more important than ever that young people gain more knowledge in matters of sexuality, relationships and not least consent. An active effort by the National Agency for Education to meet these challenges is to delegate the field of knowledge to teachers in all common subjects in upper-secondary school. The purpose of this study is to investigate how teachers of religious education at upper-secondary level perceive that they can contribute knowledge about sexuality, consent and relationships in their teaching. Based on Luce Irigaray's theory on gendered language, this study aims to find out what approaches’ teachers have to knowledge, and to see how this effect their content when involving sexuality, consent and relationships into the subject of religious education. This survey is a qualitative study, and the material has been collected through semi-structured interviews with teachers in religious education at upper secondary level in western Sweden. The study shows that teachers have a positive attitude towards including sexuality, consent and relationships in their teaching, in that they find it important that the school addresses the subject. However, exactly what and how to include it in the religious education is not clear. Thus, depending on personal interest and expertise in the subject, the teachers find different strategies to include it in their teaching.