Pedagogical experiences of and strategies for handling antisemitism in education

The Swedish educational system is instructed to to engage in teaching against racism.

The extent to which these expectations have been implemented over the years has differed depending on how serious the challenges of racism have appeared. In this project, the focus will be on antisemitism.

Representatives of authorities, media, schools and civil society repeatedly point out that antisemitism is a particularly difficult pedagogical challenge.

Antisemitism is also a productive point of departure in research on racism, since it is the main ingredient in several conspiracy theories that students encounter in their daily lives and that challenge teachers during instruction in civic education and other subjects.

The project will focus on teachers’ and students´ experiences of, and attitudes towards, antisemitism in instruction but also in other activities. The project will be carried out in schools reported to have difficulties in handling antisemitism.

The aim is to contribute to the improvement of educational and pedagogical strategies, and the capacity to handle such situations, within the general curricular responsibility of supporting democratic values. The study will be based on institutional ethnography. The empirical data will be collected at four schools with a reported problem of handling antisemitism.

An upper secondary school and a high school in each of the cities have been recruited. Access to the schools for the empirical parts of the project has been granted.