Buddhismens många ansikten : En studie om hur buddhismen framställs i läroböcker

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study has been to examine how Buddhism has been presented and represented in textbooks for Religious Education in Upper secondary school between 2003 and 2013. Four textbooks have been used for the study, where two are linked to the new curriculum from 2011 and two are the older versions. By using comparative, narrative and visual text analyses the study examines how historical context, figures and Buddhism of today are represented in the textbooks. The study shows a shifting change in the textbooks. The study concludes that the textbooks that are linked to the new curriculum from 2011 have highlighted the role Buddha as a down-to-earth person, which is not the case in the older textbooks. Simultaneously, the new textbooks have chosen to focus more on teachings of Buddhism and to exclude the historical context to a certain degree, something that was dominant among the older textbooks.  Image analysis also shows a change between older and newer textbooks, where most of the pictures in older textbooks show a dim and closed environment for the viewer's eyes. The changes in the newer textbooks provide greater diversity in the presentation of Buddhism, where today's audience may enjoy not only an illustration of Buddhism but many varieties of Buddhism through the narrative and pictures.