Rätten till muslimskt profilerade skolor - en målkonflikt?

Sammanfattning: The right to non-public schools with an ethnic or denominational profile has for the past two decades been a highly contested matter in political and media debates in Sweden. This study seeks to examine the political debate surrounding schools of muslim profile. Through a method of descriptive analysis of ideas the study explores the debate about the right to grade schools with a muslim profile according to two preset and distinct aspects of liberal and communitarian democratic theory. The method of this paper is a review of arguments in the bills submitted to the parliament during the past 15 years. By applying a set of dimensions that do not correspond to the material in beforehand, I explore the debate through an interpretation of the ideas of democracy present in this debate. The finding of this study shows a discrepancy between the teoretical framework of established political theoretical thought and the practice of politics in governmental settings. Members of parliament and left-wing and right-wing parties do differ in their opinions about the muslim schools, but their notions do not differ remarkably from those generally held about other non-public schools. Among the leftist party there were traces of liberal democratic views on rights, a view otherwise commonly adopted by most right-wing parties in Sweden. Furthermore, the study shows an ambiguity and ambivalence related to the liberal democratic view on rights in connection with these schools.