Abstract

The purpose with this essay is to present a picture of the changes in religious education in Sweden, and to make comparisons between Denmark’s and the USA’s model about teaching in religion. I have consequently described the historical development, with the beginning of the establishement of the public school, inte the year of 1842. 1919, a new document about the religious education was released, wich result in some major changes. This was in a time were the debate about religion and the Lutheran State Church of Sweden authority was an issue. The result was, among others, the abolition of the catechism as an educational material and the teaching of religion was given a considerable reduced amount of hours and the teaching was now supposed to be non-confessional. Then, in the 1960:s even more changes was about, and the teaching of religion was now supposed to share the teacher and the hours with three other subjects. This was in a time when christianity and religion over all had come in to question. Objectivity was the leading word in this new curriculum.

In the USA there is no curriculum for teaching religion in the public school, a desicion characterized with the ideology of the religious neutral state. In Denmark there is religious teaching, with a strong emphasis on christianity.