Etik i religionskunskap : En studie om etikens utrymme och framställning i tre läroböcker för mellanstadiet

Sammanfattning: Ethics is overall an important subject in school education but distinguishes in religious education compared to other school subjects. I have chosen this subject in the light of the fact that there’s not been done much research about the didactics of ethics. The aim of this study is to analyze three textbooks on religious education to see what didactic choices are made within the subject of ethics. The purpose is to investigate the space ethics is given in the books, what topics are discussed and how the content is described. The purpose of this study will be answered by the following questions: How much space is given to the subject of ethics in the textbooks? What topics from the curriculum are concerned and which ones are excluded? In what context is the subject of ethics attended and how is the content described?  The study was approached through a quantitative and qualitative text analysis. The theoretical framework is based on the term selective tradition by Raymond Williams and Basil Bernstein’s concept of classification. Selective traditions refer to patterns within different subjects and thus helps me analyze the patterns I encounter in the textbooks. Classification refers to the relation between subjects which helps me analyze the relation between ethics and religion. Results show like previous research that ethics is not prioritized in none of the textbooks as it is given very little space. Furthermore it turns out that only one out of the three books concerns most of the topics from the curriculum. The results also show that two out of the three books describes ethics in a religious context thus emphasizing the importance people’s beliefs have on their morality.