Den demokratiska skolans bemötande av främlingsfientlighet : En studie om sex religionslärares syn på sitt socialiserande uppdrag och sitt bemötande av främlingsfientliga uttryck

Sammanfattning: This essay examines how teachers in upper secondary school, who teach religion, understand and approach their mission to socialize students in a xenophobic context and how they meet xenophobic expressions from students in the classroom. This essay also includes a power perspective and investigates how an exercise of power is expressed in the teachers’ approach and strategies. Six teachers from six different schools in southeast Sweden are interviewed. The results of this study show that the teachers experience that their mission includes a position against xenophobia. The teachers have an unproblematic approach to supporting and advocating the values of the curriculum. They however don’t experience that the curriculum gives any concrete guidelines for practical work. Instead they feel it is up to them to figure out how to handle xenophobic expressions. In the teachers’ treatment of students who express xenophobia three main strategies could be observed, an open discussion with necessary ”game rules”, enlightenment and gently and relational leadership. The analysis of power points towards an exercise of power which is strongly colored by the democratic values of the Swedish school system. The power that is expressed in the teachers’ approach and strategies is subtle and can be compared with Bourdieu’s idea of symbolic violence.