Whose Power?: Mediating Religious Education in Norwegian Textbooks 1945–1997 [9783112262603]

Overview

This volume examines textbooks in the school subject “Knowledge of Christianity” that were used in Norwegian schools between 1945 and 1997, with the aim of studying how their Christian content is mediated to their readers. It demonstrates how Lutheran thought constitutes the foundation for the school’s transmission of values in Norway, even as society becomes increasingly pluralistic and heterogeneous. The study of the textbooks shows how the textbook authors are shaped by their respective theological contexts and how the transmission of Christianity gradually becomes a concern of the state rather than the church. It thus aligns with an international strand of research that sheds light on the relationship between secularization and sacralization. The secularization that typically characterizes European countries in the twentieth century is counterbalanced by a sacralization of the state. At the same time, the book demonstrates how the transmission that takes place through the textbooks in the concrete classroom setting may be shaped by the textbook author's intellectual and theological surroundings. 

The book is of interest to all those interested in 20th-century educational history and the relationship between educational history and political history, particularly in the Nordic countries.