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This study addresses issues concerning religion in the public sphere, brought about by the debates over the perceived resurgence of religion and the post-secular. The aim is to analyze the participation of religious actors in the public, using three newspaper debate pages as the empirical material. Building on theories by Casanova, especially his concept of public religions, as well as mediatization theory and Habermas' writings on religion in the public sphere, 639 opinion pieces signed by religious actors were analyzed. The mixed-methods content analysis was conducted in two steps: first a quantitative overview of the religious actors published, to what extent and on what issues. The second step consisted of three qualitative case studies based on the results of the first step: an argument analysis of the debate over same-sex marriage; an exploration of the specific position of the Church of Sweden and the idea of the national church as a public utility; and finally a discourse analysis of articles by Jewish and Muslim authors. These were analyzed on the basis of criteria for public religions developed from Casanova’s theory and from the media logic of debate articles. While the results show no clear increase in the number of religious actors during the period under scrutiny, one notices a clear presence of Muslim and Jewish actors, eventhough Christians of varying denominations dominate the material. There are also clear differences between the different religions: minority religion contributions are limited in terms of issues and scope, while Christian groups write about more varied issues. Muslims often relate to negative media discourse towards Islam, while Jewish signatories write on a limited number of themes closely related to the group itself. In many articles, one found a meta-debate over the place of religion in the public sphere even when specific issues were debated. The contribution of this dissertation is to critically discuss the concepts and assumptions underlying the debate over the place of religion in the public sphere. It stresses the importance of media perspectives as well as empirical studies for analyzing issues of authority, visibility, private/public and religion in late modern, mediated contexts.

Syftet med rapporten var bland annat att ge en bild av hur representationer av muslimer yttrar sig i svensk nyhetsrapportering. Ytterligare ett syfte var att sätta dessa representationer i ett sammanhang, dels genom reflektioner från redaktörer på några av de studerade medierna, dels i en vidare ram av forskning.

Den första delen av rapporten består av en innehållsanalys av tidningsartiklar och radio-och tv-nyheter från en sju veckor lång period i oktober–november 2014. Den andra delen behandlar genomförda intervjuer med redaktörer på några av de studerade medierna.

Analysen visade bland annat att nästan alla artiklar handlade om eller relaterade till våld, hot, islamofobi eller spänningar i samhället. Mediebilden av muslimer som sammankopplade med de negativa stereotyperna blev också stark i frånvaron av andra berättelser. Rapporten visade också att det är lite som har förändrats i relation till studier som genomfördes i Sverige för nästan 20 år sedan.

Studien genomfördes av Centrum för forskning om religion och samhälle, Uppsala universitet som ansvarar för innehållet och för de slutsatser som dras. Studien utfördes på uppdrag av Diskrimineringsombudsmannen.

This volume takes up the challenge of providing a comparative understanding of migration regimes and practices and their consequences for political systems and the people who have fled their homelands due to conflict, war and poverty between 2011 and 2020. Empirically, the chapters included in this volume are based on the research conducted in 11 countries (Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Germany, the UK and Sweden) within the framework of the Horizon 2020 RESPOND project (2017–2021), funded by the European Commission.

‘What’s past’, as the famous line in Shakespeare’s The Tempest has it, ‘is prologue’. Just as this edited volume is being compiled in 2021—some six years after the 2015 refugee emergency—developments in Afghanistan and the Polish–Belarus border appear once again to be leading to a new migration emergency.

This volume takes up the challenge of providing a comparative understanding of migration regimes and practices and their consequences for ­political systems and the people who have fled their homelands due to conflict, war and poverty between 2011 and 2020. Empirically, the chapters included in this volume are based on an impressive amount of empirical material gathered in 11 countries (Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Germany, the UK and Sweden) within the framework of the Horizon 2020 project, RESPOND.

RESPOND – Multilevel Governance of Mass Migration in Europe and ­Beyond (2017–2021) was funded by the European Commission to study migration holistically at the macro, meso and micro levels in order to understand the connections between policies, practices and experiences. The chapters in this volume provide a unique contribution to our understanding of the trends of re­nationalization and externalization in migration and asylum policies in the aftermath of the ‘migration crisis’ of 2015, as well as the reasons behind the failure of migration governance at both national and ­international levels. Just as importantly, the volume offers an anthropo­logical gaze on overlooked aspects of refugee agency, well-being, psycho­social health and belonging in post-migration processes.

This report provides a snapshot for some of the primary findings, trends and challenges with regard to immigrant integration that have been studied in nine country cases, based on research conducted within the framework of the Horizon2020 RESPOND project. These countries are Sweden, Germany, Italy, Greece, Austria, Poland, the UK, Turkey and Iraq. All nine country reports study integration in five thematic domains (labour market, education, housing, psychosocial health and citizenship) by looking at policies (macro level), practices (meso) and experiences of refugees and asylum seekers (micro level). This integrated report relies on data discussed in the macro sections of these country reports, and systematically analyses the same thematic fields in each country by looking at:

a) Legal and institutional frameworks for each thematic field (labour market, education, housing, psychosocial health, and citizenship);

b) The main trends in these domains, and

c) Problems and challenges that refugees face (based on the interview material at micro and meso levels).

Each section ends with an informative summative table. Overall, the integrated report provides a rich overview of country cases, and thus, can be read either as a whole or as separate sections.

This report explores reception policies, practices and humanitarian responses to the current refugee crisis in Sweden, focusing on the aftermath of 2015 unprecedented refugee migration, and also providing a brief historical perspective. Sweden has been known as one of the most generous countries in terms of welcoming refugees and providing an easy path to citizenship but its migration and reception policy has taken a ‘restrictive turn’ in recent years. The refugee crisis in 2015 has not only opened the window for ‘a major policy shift’ and ‘historical’ legislative changes to the Swedish migration and reception policy but also impacted the social, economic and political  sphere instigating anti-immigrant sentiments.

Based on empirical research in a women’s shelter in São Paulo, Brazil, this article examines how ‘secular’ professionals and service users negotiate conservative Christian faith, gender roles and domestic violence. The article demonstrates how staff use theological arguments with feminist interpretations of religion, in order to better communicate with abused women of faith. A key finding is that both the religious service users and the ‘secular’ professionals discover it is not religion per se which allows for situations of violence, but rather the patriarchal way in which conservative Christianity is taught in some churches, ultimately functioning as a method of controlling women. Moreover, through feminist consciousness-raising and attention to women’s rights, some abused women of faith find ways of negotiating the violence they experience, leading to an understanding of it as both personal and political.

This chapter explores the role of violence in the religious conversion of women to Pentecostalism in Brazil. It focuses on ethnographic data and interviews with female converts from a low-income, high-crime area of Sao Paulo, as well as literature analysing religious conversion in the Americas. The chapter examines that some women use religious conversion and continued spiritual practice as a strategy for dealing with everyday violence and especially domestic violence. It looks at current literature on conversion to Pentecostalism to set the scene and highlights the importance of this study. The chapter describes the reasons for women's conversion, in which domestic violence was found to be the overarching reason for conversion. It analyses the subsequent effects of women's conversion from a life-cycle perspective and the way in which religious conversion and spiritual practice were used in relation to violence.

This report explores how recent processes of immigration have changed discourses about Europe and migration in Swedish political speeches and newspaper editorials 2011-2018. In the period up to September 2015, political speeches and editorials reflected a dominant humanitarian discourse and Sweden was expected to strive for a better and more coordinated EU policy approach in relation to refugees. The prevailing image was of Sweden as a forerunner and role model for other EU member states. The right-wing populist party the Sweden Democrats (SD) represented a counter-discourse, instead emphasizing as a main problem that Sweden diverged from other European countries in maintaining a more generous approach towards migration.  In Sweden, liberal ideas and rhetoric about Europe dominate the political discourse. Political speeches analysed in this report reflect images of Europe as an “open society”; the aim being to incorporate diversity in the European project along with the fundamental approval of human rights based on the liberal platform of respect of individual dignity. The material analyzed in this report gives relatively few examples of framings characteristic of conservative ideas of Europe. One reason for this may be that, given the dominance of the liberal discourse, even right-wing populist party representatives (Sweden Democrats, SD) tend to frame their messages and proposals in a liberalist language. There are however recurrent examples of arguments and framings – used by SD as well as other political parties – focusing on the alleged threat that external migration represents, to Sweden and/or to Europe, and there is an indication of an increase in this type of frame in the second part of the studied period (2015-2018).

From a comparative European perspective, Sweden is generally known as a country pursuing relatively liberal asylum policies. One distinguishing feature of Swedish immigration policy has been the principle that persons who are given asylum are immediately granted permanent residence (although the law allows exemptions from this under certain circumstances).

This report gives an overview of the Swedish legal and policy framework of border management and migration control – how it relates to EU regulations and policies; what key actors are involved in the implementation and what the key issues and challenges are in relation to this field.

Previous research among young people (Spini & Doise 1998, Doise & al 1999) has shown that attitudes toward human rights are influenced by perception of conflicts in society and experience of discrimination and that political affiliation as well as religion also may have effect. However interesting these results are for understanding what factors that may contribute to grassroots’ engagement in human rights, these studies have failed to consider important background variables such as gender and parents’ education level, but also to include a more nuanced operationalization of religion. Drawing on data gathered in Norwegian and Swedish metropolitan upper secondary schools (n=2044) this article therefore aims to replicate earlier research correcting for these research gaps. The analysis showed that while religion had a limited effect on attitudes toward political and judicial rights, controlled for background variables, the effect of experienced discrimination and perception of conflicts related to ethnicity seemed to add significantly to the models. It was also shown that Christians did not report more discrimination related to ideology and ethnicity than non-religious, but that Muslims on the other hand did report more discrimination both related to ideology and ethnicity than others. This study has shown that there is a relation between such perceived discrimination and attitudes toward political and human rights.

This study explores the relation between religion and attitudes towards human rights among young people aged 17 to 19. The data material consists of 1660 questionnaires filled out in the classrooms by upper secondary school pupils living in the capital city of Oslo and in the Stockholm/ Uppsala area. We want first to find out if there are closer relations between religion and attitudes towards human rights concerning the private sphere than for attitudes towards human rights concerning the public sphere. By rights related to the private sphere we mean views on abortion and family values and by rights related to the public sphere we mean the right to work, views on social equality, freedom of speech, political interest and environmental protection. The study also looks at differences in this regard between Christians, Muslims and a group of nonreligious. The main result is that while a closer relation can be seen between religion and attitudes concerning the private sphere than attitudes concerning the public sphere, there is no support for the assumption that this relationship is stronger amongst the Muslim sub-group.

This article compares student’s attitudes towards human rights in countries with different religious traditions, namely Lutheran dominated Scandinavian countries and Eastern Orthodox countries in the eastern part of Europe. The four countries involved in this study are Belarus, Romania, Norway and Sweden. Our focus is student’s attitudes towards questions related to the right to life, in this case abortion. The effect that religion and religiosity have on attitudes towards abortion is a central part of the analyses. In addition, we will look at the relationship between trust in institutions and support for certain human rights. Previous studies found that trust in institutions was positively correlated with values that stress stability, protection, and preservation of traditional practices, and negatively correlated with values that emphasize independent thought and change.  On this basis we expect  that trust in governmental institutions have different effects on attitudes in countries with democratic and authoritarian regimes.

The aim of this article-based dissertation is to explore the role media play in Swedish Religious Education (RE). The purpose is to study Swedish RE teachers’ practices and how these can be related to various dynamics of mediatization, authority, and literacy. Conducted within the Teaching Religion in Late Modern Sweden project at Uppsala University, this study draws on a national survey, as well as semi-structured interviews and classroom observations with 22 RE teachers. Four specific research questions are posed, each addressed separately in four articles. (1) What kinds of media materials do Swedish RE teachers use in their teaching? (2) What kinds of media dynamics are present in RE classrooms where media materials are used? (3) How can RE teachers’ and students’ engagements with mediated religion be analysed from a multiple media literacies perspective? And, (4) how do RE teachers construct authority on religion in a mediatized situation? The first question is approached through a quantitative analysis of survey material, while the three remaining questions were analysed by the use of qualitative thematic analysis of the observations and interviews. The study finds that RE teachers in Sweden use and relate to various forms of media to a large extent in their daily teaching practices, and that these engagements with mediated religion illustrate the complex balance between the individual agency of the teacher on the one hand, and the media dynamics of amplification, framing and performative agency, and co-structuring, on the other. The teachers’ practices in relation to this are in the study viewed as a form of institutional work that is both caused by, and a contributing factor to, an increased mediatization of contemporary Swedish RE. The findings of the four articles are discussed in light of previous research on mediatization of religion in a Nordic context, specifically with regard to literacy and authority. The author argues that by studying these processes within an educational setting – a context that until recently has been under-explored within mediatization of religion research – the study provides new empirical as well as theoretical knowledge not only to the field of sociology of religion, but also to research on authority and religious education.

Recent studies show that religious education (RE) and various media outlets serve as increasingly important arenas for religious socialisation among Swedish youths. At the same time it has been shown that media material, for example in the form of various news media, often make their way into RE classrooms to be used as materials alongside the more traditional textbooks. However, little quantitative research has been conducted in order to map RE teachers’ selection and use of materials in their classrooms, and what factors are involved in this selection. A nationally representative survey among 1292 RE teachers was conducted, and the results clearly show that textbooks are the most popular form of material, followed by pictures, sacred texts, documentaries, television news and news articles. Out of the relevant background variables it was primarily school form, age, gender and religiosity that seemed to influence the teachers’ choices of material. The author concludes that familiarity with a certain form of material through personal experiences is a likely explanation for many of the correlations found, and that further research is needed in order to explore the potential complexities that arise in the juxtaposition of classroom and media logics.

In Sweden, media in various forms act as one of the main settings where young peopleencounter religion, both in schools and elsewhere. With a seemingly ever-expanding developmentof communication technology, researchers and politicians alike are arguing forthe need to educate our citizens in media literacy. By applying the concept of multiplemedia literacy, this article argues for a more nuanced view of the skills needed to criticallyengage with various kinds of media. By analysing interview material of both teachers andstudents, the article concludes that increased focus within RE on how various mediumsoperate, and on the complex nature of social media, would likely result in a richer medialiteracy for students and teachers alike.