Konfessionella friskolor : Extremism eller rätten att välja

Sammanfattning: Independent confessional schools have been a heavily discussed subject in Sweden in recent years. At the same time, the spread of information is shifting more and more from the religious institutions themselves to be controlled by the media according to the mediatization theory. This paper aims to investigate what arguments are used, and which themes can be identified in the discussion about confessional schools in Sweden in two large newspapers using qualitative thematic analysis. Moreover, the investigation is using a quantitative approach to find out if the question about confessional schools have gained more or less attention during recent years, looking at the number of publications from Swedish newspapers. The findings show that the number of publications has risen quite drastically in the last 15 years, and the years with the highest peaks correlate with the election years in 2018 and 2022, which both were election years in Sweden. Moreover, the paper aims to gain a better understanding about how we can relate that discourse to mediatization theory. Meaning that the media plays a big part in controlling the narrative, together with the audience. The results in this investigation are quite similar to previous research concerning what type of themes that can be identified in the discussion and debates about confessional schools. The investigation also highlights some difficulties in the legislation and decisions made to control how confessional schools in Sweden are being run.