Abstract
This chapter emanates from the Swedish context where the RE subject since the 1960s is a confessionally neutral and broad subject that includes not only knowledge of religions but also ethics and ‘livsfrågor’ [existential questions]. Accepting Michael Young’s perspective that there is knowledge that pupils are entitled to and that there is power in knowledge that transcends contextually bound insights and expressions, one must add that the discussion about which these indispensable concepts and discourses are, has been more developed concerning religion than ethics or existential questions/worldviews. There is a need for a qualified discussion about powerful knowledge, and what constitute powerful knowledge, also in these fields. However, such a discussion cannot take as its only point of reference the potential strength in concepts and discourses. There is also a need for a dialectic relationship between ‘curriculum’ and ‘child’. A teaching that does not reach the children that the teaching is to engage cannot be considered meaningful, no matter how powerful the knowledge paid attention to may be. In addition, if knowledge also is contextual, powerful knowledge can only be powerful in the practices that acknowledge this knowledge and allows it to be powerful. Powerful teaching must take into consideration the practices where the pupils have to appear as powerful, even if it cannot stay in these contexts. The purpose of this chapter is to argue for the importance of a dialectical perspective when discussing PK—a perspective that recognizes both child and curriculum—and based on three current empirical projects on ethics and pupils’ existential questions, discuss what we know about children’s knowledge interest and concrete meanings of powerful knowledge regarding ethics and existential questions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Almén, E. (2000). Religious education in Sweden. In E. Almén & H. C. Øster (Eds.), Religious education in Great Britain, Sweden and Russia. Presentations, problem inventories and commentaries. Texts from the PETER project (pp. 60–91). Linköping University Electronic Press.
Bakhtin, M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. University of Texas Press.
Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity. Rowman & Littlefield.
Biesta, G. (2022). World-centred education: A view for the present. Routledge.
Carlgren, I. (2020). Powerful knowns and powerful knowings. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 52(3), 323–336.
Dahlin, B. (1998). Om undran inför livet: barn och livsfrågor i ett mångkulturellt samhälle. [About wonder before life: Children and existential questions in a multicultural society]. Studentlitteratur.
Dewey, J. (1902). The child and the curriculum. The University of Chicago Press.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. The Macmillan Company.
Dysthe, O. (1996). Det flerstämmiga klassrummet. [The Polyphonic classroom]. Studentlitteratur.
Franck, O. (2021a). Religionslärande som bildningsresa: En kommentar till reviderad kursplan i religionskunskap i Sverige. [Learning about religion as an educational journey: A commentary on the revised curriculum in Religious Education in Sweden]. Nordidactica, 11(3), 97–120.
Franck, O. (2021b). Gateways to accessing powerful RE knowledge: A critical constructive analysis. Journal of Religious Education, 69(1), 161–174.
Gericke, N., Hudson, B., Olin-Scheller, C., & Stolare, M. (2018). Powerful knowledge, transformations and the need for empirical studies across school subjects. London Review of Education, 16(3), 428–444.
Grimmitt, M. (1987). Religious education and human development. McCrimmons.
Hartman, S. G. (1986). Children’s philosophy of life. Stockholm Institute of Education.
Jie, L., & Desheng, G. (2004). New directions in the moral education curriculum in Chinese Primary Schools. Journal of Moral Education, 33(4), 495–510.
Kohlberg, L. (1971). Stage and sequence: The cognitive-developmental approach to socialization. In D. A. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of socialization theory and research (pp. 347–480). Rand McNally & Company.
Lindfelt, M. (2003). Att förstå livsåskådningar: en metateoretisk analys av teologisk livsåskådningsforskning med anknytning till Anders Jeffners ansatser. [Understanding views on life: A metatheoretical analysis of theological views on life views related to Anders Jeffner’s approaches]. Acta universitatis upsaliensis.
Muller, J., & Young, M. (2019). Knowledge, power and powerful knowledge re-visited. Curriculum Journal, 30(2), 196–214.
Niemi, K. (2018). Religionsvetenskapliga tröskelbegrepp: stötestenar och språngbrädor vid utvecklingen av ett ämnesperspektiv. [Religious science threshold concepts: Stumbling blocks and springboards in the development of a subject perspective]. Nordidactica, 2018(2), 1–22.
Osbeck, C. (2007). Utvärdering av projektet PÅ LIKA VILLKOR. [Evaluation of the project ON EQUAL TERMS]. Karlstads universitet.
Osbeck, C. (2009). Religionskunskapslärare. In B. Schüllerqvist & C. Osbeck (Eds.), Ämnesdidaktiska insikter och strategier: berättelser från gymnasielärare i samhällskunskap, geografi, historia och religionskunskap. [Subject didactic insights and strategies: Stories from high school teachers in social studies, geography, history and religious studies] (pp. 157–204). Karlstad: Karlstad University Press.
Osbeck, C. (2014). Conditions for teaching and learning in religious education (RE)—Perspectives of teachers and pupils at the beginning of the 6th grade in Sweden. Nordidactica: Journal of Humanities and Social Science Education, 2014(2), 76–96.
Osbeck, C. (2018). Values and existential understandings as parts of students’ ethical competence. In J. Astley, L. J. Francis, & D. W. Lankshear (Eds.), Values, human rights and religious education: Contested grounds (pp. 19–37). Peter Lang.
Osbeck, C. (2020). Powerful knowledge? A multidimensional ethical competence through a multitude of narratives. HTS Teologiese Studies, 76(1), 1–8.
Osbeck, C., Franck, O., Lilja, A., & Sporre, K. (2018). Possible competences to be aimed at in EE–Ethical competences highlighted in educational research journals. Journal of Beliefs & Values, 39(2), 195–208.
Osbeck, C., Kärnebro, K., Lilja, A., & Sporre, K. (forthcoming). What concerns do children have today in comparison to 1970s and 80s?—a sociocultural perspective to children’s worldviews and existential questions.
Ristiniemi, J., Skeie, G., & Sporre, K. (Eds.). (2018). Challenging life: Existential questions as a resource for education. Waxmann.
Säljö, R. (2000). Lärande i praktiken: ett sociokulturellt perspektiv. [Learning in practice: A sociocultural perspective]. Prisma.
Sporre, K. (2020). Ethics in compulsory education—Human dignity, rights and social justice in five contexts. HTS Teologiese Studies/ Theological Studies, 76(1), 1–10.
Sporre, K. (2021a). Children’s existential questions—recognized in Scandinavian curricula, or not? Journal of Curriculum Studies, 53, 367–383.
Sporre, K. (2021b). EE within religious and values education: Studies in Sweden, Namibia, South Africa, California and Québec. In L. J. Francis, D. W. Lankshear, & S. G. Parker (Eds.), New directions in religious and values education: International perspectives (pp. 251–272). Peter Lang Publishing Group.
Sporre, K. (forthcoming). The existential questions of children—and curricular responses.
Sporre, K., Franck, O., Lilja, A., & Osbeck, C. (2020). Ethics education in Swedish RE - and future content for ethics education in compulsory school. In I. ter Avest, C. Bakker, J. Ipgrave, S. Leonhard, & P. Schreiner (Eds.), Facing the unknown future: Religion and education on the move. Religious diversity and education in Europe (pp. 195–208). Waxmann.
Sporre, K., Lotz-Sisitka, H., & Osbeck, C. (2022). Taking the moral authorship of children and youth seriously in times of the Anthropocene. Ethics and Education, 17(1), 101–116.
Stones, A., & Fraser-Pearce, J. (2021). Some pupils should know better (because there is better knowledge than opinion). Interim findings from an empirical study of pupils’ and teachers’ understandings of knowledge and big questions in Religious Education. Journal of Religious Education, 69(3), 353–366.
Tappan, M. B. (1991). Narrative, authorship, and the development of moral authority. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 54, 5–25.
Tappan, M. B. (1998). Moral education in the zone of proximal development. Journal of Moral Education, 27(2), 141–160.
Tappan, M. B. (2006). Moral functioning as mediated action. Journal of Moral Education, 35(1), 1–18.
Tappan, M. B., & Brown, L. M. (1989). Stories told and lessons learned: Toward a narrative approach to moral development and moral education. Harvard Educational Review, 59(2), 182–206.
Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the mind. A sociocultural approach to mediated action. Harvester Wheatsheaf.
White, J. (2018). The weakness of powerful knowledge. London Review of Education, 16(2), 325–335.
Winther Jørgensen, M., & Phillips, L. (2000). Diskursanalys som teori och metod. [Discourse analysis as theory and method]. Studentlitteratur.
Young, M. (2013). Overcoming the crisis in curriculum theory: A knowledge-based approach. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(2), 101–118.
Young, M., & Muller, J. (2013). On the powers of powerful knowledge. Review of Education, 1(3), 229–250.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Osbeck, C., Sporre, K., Lilja, A. (2023). Powerful Knowledge in Ethics and Existential Questions: Which Discourses, for Which Pupils, in Which Contexts?. In: Franck, O., Thalén, P. (eds) Powerful Knowledge in Religious Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23186-5_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23186-5_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-23185-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-23186-5
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)