Den stereotypa religionsutövaren : En granskning av judendom och hinduism i grundskolans läromedel i religionskunskap

Sammanfattning: This essay analyses how Judaism and Hinduism are portrayed in textbooks of religion. To get a width in the study three textbooks from different publishers are examined. The analysed textbooks are produced for secondary school according to the newest curriculum from 2011. The study inspects whether the books are consistent or not and if they are in what way and in which aspects the textbooks are inconsistent. It also focuses on generalizations and the problems that follow with it. The material has been divided into six categories. Then the categories are examined one by one and with the different perspectives of consistency and generalization.  The textbooks that have been studied are all inconsistent in some respect in their portrayals of the religions in question. These inconsistencies are mostly about the amount of space different aspects of both religions get. Sometimes one part of Judaism is well described while the same part is missing in the chapter about Hinduism.  Plenty of generalizations are found in the textbooks. These encourage the reader to think of the religions as more uniform than they really are. This also leads to certain people representing the entire religion. In Judaism it is the Orthodox Jews that are most often represented and in Hinduism it is Indian Hinduism that is described. This entails that the groups that are presented in the textbooks become stereotypes. Students may be led to believe that these are the only ways to practice the religious traditions.