Childhood with Churches. Children’s identity work in multireligious non-denominational preschools

In the past decades Sweden has become a multireligious society. Religion is a potent social category and principle by which children organize and understand their social world. Yet, we know very little about how children come to terms with religious diversity they encounter in preschools.

The proposed project adopts a child-centered approach acknowledging children as active agents in their own identity development.

The aim is to get insights about how religious diversity is managed and negotiated in Swedish preschools from a child perspective. The two researchers involved in this project have a long record of exploring sensitive issues in preschools.

In this project they will utilize qualitative child-centered methods, including participant observations, story-creating and story-crafting activities and focus-group interviews with children.

The theoretical framework integrates ethnic and racial identity theory and a multidimensional model of religion, emphasizing the dynamic nature of identity formation and the interplay between religious and cultural identifications.

The project aims to provide new and deeper insights into how young children make use of religious categories and contributes to the research on children’s developing ethnic (including cultural and religious) identifications.

New knowledge about religious diversity from a child perspective may also inform decision-making on children’s religious rights at both societal and institutional levels.