When teachers face religion in public education. Case examples from Finnish public education

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe with examples what kind of challenges there are in the handling of religion in public school. This is done with case examples from interactions between teachers and Somali Muslim pupils and guardians in a school. The school is located in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area and has 350 pupils in grades 1–6. The qualitative data used here includes ethnographic field notes and field interviews, interviews and group interviews. The participants include education professionals and pupils from the school. In the article, three kinds of examples of challenges with regard to handling religion in public education are described. These are nationalising/ethnicising Islam, isolating religious education from lived religion and religionising cultural practices.