Abstract
The paper explores how in a Swedish preschool with a religious profile teachers balance between keeping education non-confessional and teaching about a tradition with religious roots. In this paper, the focus is on how and why the secular and religious narratives are intertwined in a play that aims to teach children about why Easter is celebrated. Theoretically we combine Grimmitt's theoretical concepts of learning about and learning from religion with Smart's analytical framework. The analysis reveals that through translating between the secular and religious narratives the play offered an opportunity to learn both about and from religion.
Highlights
The paper explores how in a Swedish preschool with a religious profile teachers balance between keeping education non-confessional and teaching about a tradition with religious roots
The focus is on how and why the secular and religious narratives are intertwined in a play that aims to teach children about why Easter is celebrated
KEYWORDS non-confessional; preschool with a religious profile; teaching about a religious tradition In Sweden, over 80% of all children between the ages of 1 and 5 years are enrolled in preschool education
Summary
At the beginning of this article we raised the question of how and why the secular and religious narratives are intertwined in a play about Easter performed in a church. Thereby, while the story could be interpreted differently by believing Christian children than by non-believing children or by children with a different faith, it offered an educational gift to all of them in terms of teaching about why Easter is celebrated Another educational gift offered by the play was the possibility to reflect on the moral of getting a reward for hard work, as expressed in the final part of the performance when the chicken and the children got a reward for learning from the performance. It is important to highlight that this was achieved through the involvement of two “experts” who, unlike the great majority of Swedish preschool teachers, have an education in religious studies and the competence to employ worldview sensitivity Their way of working with the religious and secular narratives that surround Easter constitutes an example of the fruitfulness of worldview sensitivity, that is the ability to work inclusively with both religious and nonreligious worldviews, for teaching about and teaching from religion
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