Sex education and religion - resistance and possibilities

ABSTRACT

Starting with the question of why there is so much religiously motivated resistance against compulsory sex education, this article explores and discusses entanglements of norms about sexuality, gender, and religion in education. Based on predominantly Swedish data, the aim of the paper is to offer perspectives on connections between religiosity and discourses about sexuality. The first part centres around religious resistance against compulsory sex education. The second part draws on phenomenology of religions to explore roots for this religiously motivated resistance. In the third part, the perspective is reversed, discussing how and why secular education dismisses religious perspectives and values. The conclusion is that awareness of how arguments are based on differing presumptions about religion offers opportunities for dialogue, and that considering human existence as vulnerable, interdependent, and responsible might be a valuable religious contribution to sex education.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex education
• sex and religion
• definitions of religion
• secularism

Introduction

In early 2022, the Swedish Discrimination Ombudsman decided that a teacher had subjected a student to discrimination by refusing, when asked to do so, to refer to the student with the gender-neutral pronoun ‘hen’ (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen 2022). The pronoun ‘hen’ was added to the official guide to the Swedish language, the Swedish Academy Dictionary, in 2015. It is used in cases where gender is of no significance, and for and by transgender or non-binary persons (Lindqvist, Renström, and Gustafsson Sendén 2021; Wallner and Ériksson Barajas 2022). The Discrimination Ombudsman’s decision established that individuals are entitled to define their gender identity. If this is not respected, the individual is exposed to discrimination. With reference to the curriculum, the discrimination law, and teachers’ professional ethics, the school gave economic compensation to the student, and the teacher was dismissed. The teacher insisted that she wasn’t guilty but that she was a victim of religious discrimination because, according to her Christian faith, there are no non-binary people. Although convicted by the ombudsman, she received support from elsewhere. In a video recording from a Christian conference, she is portrayed as a victim of disrespect and religious discrimination (Youtube 2022). This demonstrates how discrimination based on gender identity is put in opposition to discrimination based on religion. According to the teacher, the way in which society and, by extension, the school relates to gender, sexuality, bi- and homosexuality, and various expressions of gender-crossing becomes offensive and discriminatory. For her, the verdict was not about harassment or discrimination against a student; it was an expression of discrimination against a Christian teacher.

The teacher in the example is not unique. Religiously motivated resistance against breaches of dominant norms connected to gender are common. In recent years, opposition against non-binary and trans people has increased and become more influential. Right-wing nationalist movements around the world are actively working to limit non-binary heterosexual gender expressions (Kuhar and Paternotte 2017; Möser, Ramme, and Takács 2022). In Sweden, municipal politicians have taken initiatives to shut down drag story hours (Röshammar 2022), regional politicians have stopped Lucia processions with non-binary Lucias (Kierkegaard 2022), and politicians from the right-wing nationalist Sweden Democrat (SD) party have presented parliamentary motions to remove or limit gender education elements in preschools and schools (Motion 2023/24:366). In Sweden, as a rule, religious arguments against gender studies, gender equality, and LGBTQI rights are kept apart. In other countries, for example France, the nationalist and conservative arguments for opposition to gender studies and sex education are entangled with and reinforced by religious arguments (Möser and Reimers 2022).

This article is prompted by curiosity about the prevalence of religiously motivated resistance to sex education and about how people cling to the notions of stable binary gender, heteronormativity, and nuclear family norms. I acknowledge that this curiosity is based on a series of taken-for-granted assumptions about gender, sexuality, and the boundaries of private and public, and about religion. This becomes clear because, as the paper shows, there is a corresponding bewilderment based on almost opposite assumptions about why the school – and not the family – should be a space for teaching about gender roles, sexuality, and consent.

In parallel with the religiously motivated resistance to teaching about sexuality, there is an opposite tendency, which partially supports the arguments of the teacher in the opening example. Sweden is often described as one of the world’s most secularised countries, where religion plays little or no role for the society and for most of the people living there. Just as institutions and individuals in the name of religion argue that sex education has no place in compulsory education, there are secularly motivated demands that the school should be completely free from religion and religious influence. For example, the curriculum requires all teaching to be ‘non-confessional’ (Skolverket [National Agency of Education] 2022), and previous and current governments have wanted to ban (Utbildningsdepartementet 2022) or limit (Letmark 2022) the space for religious free schools. Furthermore, even though school graduations are allowed to take place in churches, the ceremonies cannot include any confessional elements (SOU 2019, 64), and politicians have taken initiatives to regulate girls’ dress by banning the hijab (Motion 2021/22:2513). Another consequence of the ambition to keep school and religion separate is that, although most preschools celebrate the Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter every year, they claim to approach these as Swedish traditions without religious significance (Puskás and Andersson 2021; Reimers 2020). Consequently, this paper revolves around three questions. First, why within religions, Christianity and Islam in particular, are there so many limiting views about how people should be allowed to express their gender and sexuality? Second, why are there features of animosity against religion in school policy and school debate. Third, what can religious perspectives add to the knowledge area of sex education? Based on predominantly Swedish data, the aim of the paper is to offer different perspectives on connections between religiosity and discourses and teaching about sexuality.

Knowledge and power

The point of departure for this paper is that people’s understandings of sexuality – as desire, feeling, identity, and role in society – create boundaries for what is considered normal, permitted, and/or forbidden. In this way, knowledge and norms about sexuality become a matter of power (Foucault 1990; Martinsson and Reimers 2020). Individuals and collectives are controlled by norms about gender, sexuality, and family that limit people’s spaces for action. Gender and sexuality boundaries are maintained through various forms and levels of punishment. These can include anything from imprisonment or abuse; being deprived of family, friends, and social cohesion; or being ostracised, fired, or bullied. Consequences of norm violations cause people to adapt, hide desires, enter bad relationships, engage in self-harm behaviour or, in the worst cases, commit suicide. On the other hand, when jurisprudence changes and homosexual and transgender people are recognised and legally protected, more ways to express and identify oneself are available, resulting in safer and more secure lives.

In recent years, several global organisations have stressed the importance of increasing knowledge about bodies, gender, and sexuality. Two transnational policy documents (UNESCO 2019; United Nations 2020) state that sex education is crucial for young people to build self-esteem, develop respectful relationships, and assess and manage risks linked to sexuality, consent, and family life. The documents have been adopted by almost all member states. Despite this global consensus, no other school subject has been as contested, questioned, and subjected to resistance (compare Clark 2001). The policy documents evince that the opposition is often motivated on religious grounds.

Religion and sexuality

The policy document Facing the Facts: The Case for Comprehensive Sexuality Education from UNESCO (2019) emphasises the importance of compulsory education about sexuality, sexual identities, and gender. The same document recounts difficulties with introducing these topics in schools. In many countries, with reference to Islam and Christianity, there is political pressure to prevent children and young people from learning about reproduction, contraceptives, sexually transmitted diseases, gay and trans issues, and gender norms. Before I present some examples from the UNESCO policy document, I need to make clear that there is no unambiguous or self-evident link between religiosity and resistance to sex education. Representatives from religious institutions and individuals from different faiths hold different and sometimes contradictory positions Hurst et al. (2024), Phillips et al. (2023). Nevertheless, the policy presents several examples of religiously motivated opposition. In Iran, Afghanistan, and Malawi, girls are not taught about menstruation (UNESCO 2019). In Uganda, sex education was introduced but later withdrawn. Today in Uganda, in the rare cases of sex education, the aim of the teaching is to draw boundaries between what is right and wrong, permitted and forbidden (UNESCO 2019). Similarly in the United States, which has no national curriculum or common guidelines for sex education, in many states, sex education in schools is guided by evangelical conservative Christian morals advocating sexual abstinence before an anticipated heterosexual marriage (UNESCO 2019). This means that, in some states, topics such as contraception, abortion, masturbation, sexual desire, homosexuality, bisexuality, trans issues, and consent are never raised. Likewise, allegedly Christian arguments have been used for the recent introduction of the so-called ‘Don’t say gay’ legislation in Florida, which makes it illegal to mention the existence of LGBTQI persons from preschool to year three (Associated Press 2022). The law later came to include older students (Pendharkar 2023). Here, the argument is that sex education is an abuse of the parents’ right to decide on their children’s knowledge and morals in matters of sex. Other states have a more progressive curriculum, often supported by liberal protestant churches. As demonstrated by Slominski (2021), liberal protestants have had a pivotal influence in promoting progressive sex education in public schools. The resistance comes from conservative evangelical churches. In England, statutory guidance for relationships and sex education (RSE) was introduced in 2019 (Department for Education DfE 2019). The aim of the guidance was to strengthen RSE by stating that all primary schools must teach relationship education, and all secondary schools must teach RSE. It is apparent from the content of the guidance that the relation between religion and RSE is perceived as sensitive, and that there had most likely been opposition from religious bodies in putting the policy in place. There is a section demanding that schools develop good relationships with local faith communities, take account of the pupils’ religious backgrounds, and teach about faith perspectives (Department for Education DfE 2019, 12). Another section stresses the need to work closely with parents in planning when and how the subject will be taught, and to inform them that they ‘have the right to request that their child be withdrawn from some or all of sex education delivered as part of statutory RSE’ (Department for Education DfE 2019, 17). The strong position of parents in relation to RSE shows that norms and ideas about gender and sexuality are regarded as moral issues and as private or family matters (Sell and Reiss 2022). If the parents perceive that the teaching might be in opposition to their views, their children are denied RSE.

The tenacious work of many Muslim congregations and Christian churches to prevent children from learning about sex, sexuality, and gender could be understood as a religious ambition to hide and refrain from engaging with these topics. However, this is not the case. The topic of sexuality is frequently addressed by religious representatives. Organised religions devote plenty of energy to regulating women’s and men’s sexuality. It is with reference to religion that girls are married off at a young age, that girls/women and boys/men are not allowed to associate with each other, that girls/women are expected to cover their bodies, that young people are not informed about birth control, and that homosexuality and what is perceived as cross-gender expressions are condemned (Hélie and Hoodfar 2012). Another indication that religions attach great importance to issues of sexuality is that, in most countries, some religious representatives almost reflexively react with a loud opposition against compulsory sex education. The same applies to legislation that gives LGBTQI people rights equal to those of cis-identified heterosexual people. There have been endless discussions in Sweden – in books and magazines, and on websites and social media – about issues connected to sexuality, such as sex before marriage, homosexuality, trans and non-binary gender identity, and women’s clothing. All of these are issues that the majority in society consider more or less unproblematic. However, religious morals are not stable and have changed over time. Today, most religious communities allow divorce, and it is possible for women to serve as religious leaders. As demonstrated in the introduction, opposition to LGBTQI rights is vivid in some Christian contexts as well as in Muslim communities (Habib 2010). In Sweden, legislation to make life safer for LGBTQI people has always faced resistance from religious organisations and their representatives. This applies to decriminalisation of homosexual acts, partnership laws, the right of same-sex couples to adopt children, insemination for same-sex couples, gender-neutral marriage laws, and the right to gender-correcting treatment without a requirement for sterilisation. Although Sweden has already put in place most legislation required to make life safer for LGBTQI people, resistance continues in several churches. An editorial from December 2022 in Världen idag [The World of Today], a newspaper with a close connection to the Faith Movement, begins with ‘It has been a stormy autumn in Swedish Christianity. As so often in the past, the reason for this is LGBTQ issues, and it is easy to feel that you want to give in’ (my translation) (Adolfsson 2022). The author claims that homosexuality and Christian faith are incompatible. Similarly, a debate article in Dagen [The Day] – a newspaper rooted in the Pentecostal movement – rejects homosexuality by constructing the lives of homosexuals as a matter of biblical views and biblical interpretation (Dagen 2015). Hereby, experiences of harassment and discrimination are dismissed as irrelevant. In recent years, several books on the subject were published by Christian authors and publishers (Edsinger and Baker 2019; Eurell 2022; Mattebo 2022). Together this points to a high interest in homosexuality and gender identity among a Christian readership. Even though the Lutheran Church of Sweden and the Reformed Uniting Church tend to be more accepting of LGBTQI rights, this is not unambiguous. In 2022, the general assembly of the Church of Sweden voted no to a motion stipulating that all priests should be obliged to officiate at weddings for same-sex couples (Kyrkans 2022). In the same year, a Uniting Church congregation left the church to set up their own more exclusive congregation where they could refuse membership to LGBTQI people (Spånberger 2023). Likewise, many Muslim representatives express a remarkably high interest in sexuality, and it is not uncommon for Muslim parents to insist that it is harmful for children to learn about bodies and sexuality (UNESCO 2019).

At a time when right-wing nationalism is gaining increased influence, there is reason to emphasise that opposition to women’s and LGBTQI people’s rights is not solely motivated by religious principles. In large parts of Europe, some churches and right-wing nationalists have joined forces to form a strong anti-gender movement that opposes feminism, equality, and rights for LGBTQI people Kuhar and Paternotte (2017), Möser and Reimers (2022).

Differing and entangled perspectives on religion

To make sense of religion in relation to sex education it is important to acknowledge that religion is an ambiguous concept and phenomenon with no single definition (Smart 1998). From a substantial perspective, religion is defined based on practices such as rites, holiday celebrations, charity, and punishment, as well as application of rules for diet, clothing, hygiene, and family norms (Furseth and Repstad 2016). A functional definition of religion is based on effects of religion with regard to worldview, moral systems, societal influence of institutions, oppression or liberation, security or anxiety. By anchoring the meaning of belonging to the collective in something divine, religion becomes a glue that holds the collective together (Furseth and Repstad 2016). One example is the Church of Sweden. For almost 500 years, the leadership of the Kingdom of Sweden was intertwined with the leadership of the church and vice versa. Although this bond was dissolved in 2000, the Church of Sweden still maintains symbolic functions that bind the nation of Sweden together. As head of state, the king must belong to the Church of Sweden; in connection with the ceremonial opening of the Parliament, there is a church service in the cathedral in Stockholm, and following national disasters such as the shipwreck of M/S Estonia in 1994 and the tsunami in Thailand in 2004, the Church of Sweden has played a central role in supporting collectives and individuals that have been affected. At the same time, Sweden is often described as secularised. This is not only because the state and church are separate. International surveys show that most people in Sweden see religion as insignificant (Loek and Riis 2003). In conflicts between people who use religious arguments and people who use non-religious arguments, secular organisations and institutions are depicted as empty of and in opposition to religion. Even if Sweden is secular on a political level, the cultural secular identity is based on a specific view of what is to be understood as religious. Historically, traditional Christian phenomena and actions (e.g. baptisms, weddings, funerals, Christmas and Easter celebrations, church buildings, the sound of church bells) have regularly been considered and treated as solely national and thus as religiously empty. Consequently, practices from other religions and other Christian churches paradoxically come to appear not only as less Swedish but also as more religious than practices performed by the Church of Sweden. Other Nordic countries are similar in this regard (Eriksson, Gunner, and Blåder 2012). Analysis of the conflict between secular Christian Denmark and parts of the Muslim world in 2005, which arose with the publication of twelve cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, showed that neither side could understand the other because they had differing ways to make sense of the concepts of ‘freedom’ and ‘religion’. What was seen from the perspective of a Danish newspaper as freedom of expression was seen from the perspective of many Muslim countries as a violation of the faith of all Muslims (Asad 2013; Mahmood 2013). The Muslim reactions were based on the view that the images were in violation of the collective common values holding their religious community together. A similar conflict is ongoing at the time of writing (July 2023), where many Muslim communities have reacted with protests and violence because the Swedish authorities have permitted public burnings of the Quran (Aljazeera 2023). Where one side argues that freedom of expression includes the right to insult the religions of others, the other side argues that the affronts are not only attacks on the faith of individuals but on the entire Muslim world. Asad (2013) and Mahmood (2013) claim that this kind of conflict cannot be resolved, but that a greater understanding of different ways of comprehending the meanings of freedom as well as religion can open for tolerance and respect of the differing perspectives.

Religions and sex

Sociologically and historically, the main function of religions has been to keep a collective together. Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and religions that developed from these were all originally linked to specific peoples or clans. By enforcing boundaries for who can sleep with whom, control was exercised over kinship and family. Since only female bodies can give birth, it became essential to control women’s sexuality. This is a possible explanation for why there are so many rules and traditions targeted at limiting women’s opportunities for intercourse outside of marriage within Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. These beliefs and actions are by no means universal, but they are practised in different parts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Even if resistance against sex education is not always based on religious convictions, it is always connected to power in the form of political power, economic power, gender power, medical power, psychological power, and power linked to education. Efforts to regulate and restrain the freedom of human bodies, regardless of their motivation, are different forms of ‘bio-power’ (Foucault 1990). Sexual norms express power between religion and society, between young and old, between parents and children, between teachers and students, between the state and individuals. These different power relations are intertwined and cannot be completely separated. The introduction of sex education in Sweden in 1955 was motivated by how repeated pregnancies and unprotected sex posed risks to women’s health and by the need for an adequate labour force (Lennerhed 1995). If women gave birth to fewer children, they would have more time to work outside the home. In many countries today, sex education focuses largely on risks – in the form of sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancy, and/or sexual abuse – and not on desire and pleasure (Bolander 2009; Fields 2008). Furthermore, conceptions of gender and sexuality are permeated by male and female stereotypes of what characterises women and men and their sexuality in different cultures and in different social classes. In sex education, these stereotypes can be confirmed but also disturbed (Renold and Timperley 2023). The latter is one reason why there are political and religious forces that oppose, or want to control, sex education. Knowledge about contraception and abortion gives girls/women control over reproduction, which is a prerequisite for their independence in relation to men and relatives. Pregnancy can thereby become an option rather than a threat, and women’s life opportunities increase. Studies and professional work are facilitated when women can make informed decisions about marriage and children. This is also a question of social class. Life opportunities for poor women are more limited by pregnancy and childbirth than those for the rich (Fields 2008). Thus, knowledge about gender norms and sexuality can make women, unlike what was often the case in the past, into sexual subjects, not only sexual objects. The power over bodies is linked to which ‘truths’ about sexuality are made legitimate (Foucault 1990). When organisations and individuals want to ban or limit the content of compulsory sex education, it is an expression of claims to power about who should control young people’s sexuality: religions, parents, or school. In societies where state and religion are closely connected, the scope and content of sex education is limited. This is the case in many states in the US where the curricula advocate abstinence before marriage, and in schools in many Muslim countries where there is no sex education at all. However, the religious perspective is not unambiguous. Therefore, the struggle around norms and knowledge is simultaneously a struggle about which interpretations of religion are ‘true’ and authentic. When conservative Christian newspapers continuously publish articles claiming that homosexuality is a sin and should not be tolerated in Christian churches, this indicates that there are voices both outside and within the newspapers’ readership who believe that homosexuality is not a sin, that the Bible can be interpreted in different ways, and that the congregations should also be open to LGBTQI people.

Religion as phenomenon and perspective in secular public education

In Sweden, education was originally a responsibility of the church. When the public school was established in 1842, it was run by the church, and Christianity was the most important subject to be taught. Since then, the strong tie between public education and the Church of Sweden has gradually weakened. In the 1969 curriculum, ‘Knowledge of Christianity’ was replaced with ‘Knowledge of religion’, and through the term ‘non-confessional’ it was emphasised that the purpose of the subject had changed from teaching ‘in’ religion to teaching ‘about’ religion (Skolöverstyrelsen 1969; Franck 2015).

In the 1990s, the role and place of the Church of Sweden in schools was highlighted in the debate about whether school graduation ceremonies in church buildings and the singing of hymns were compatible with a non-confessional education. The Parliament decided on a compromise. School graduations and other school events may take place in churches provided that the content of the gathering is non-confessional (SOU 2019, 64). The argument is that, in this context, the place and the activity are expressions of tradition and not of religion. Despite the requirement of non-confessional teaching, it was decided that denominational free schools are allowed provided that they limit denominational elements in the parts of the education that do not involve direct teaching (SOU 2019, 64). At the same time, denominational schools are increasingly put into question. The government initiated an inquiry directed at stopping the establishment of new denominational independent schools together with stricter control over their teaching (SOU 2019, 64). The argument is that compulsory education in Sweden must be secular, that religious schools risk reinforcing segregation between different groups, and that denominational free schools might violate the core values of education. At time of writing (July 2023), there was no decision. The governmental investigation showed that a ban can be difficult to reconcile with other legislation. However, it is likely that stricter wording of what schools may and may not do will make it more difficult to run denominational schools. The School Act defines confessional elements as ‘elements that contain confessional or proclaiming elements that belong to a certain religion’ (Skolverket 2010 §3). The statement draws on and enforces aspects of religion that emphasise personal conviction and adherence to certain dogmas, that is, Protestant and secularised conceptions of religion. Other aspects, such as the celebration of festivals, external attributes, and various symbols are not regarded as expressions of religion and religiosity. This is why it is possible to celebrate Christmas, sing hymns, and have school gatherings in churches without breaching the requirement to be non-confessional. With this secular Protestant view of religiosity as the point of departure, other ways of understanding religion are marginalised. Those who hold a collectivist view of religion are less likely to agree that Christmas and Easter celebrations and gatherings in churches with hymn singing are not religious acts.

Another example of how conceptions of religion surface in Swedish compulsory education is found in the most recent edition of the national curriculum (Skolverket 2022). Here the former term ‘sex and relationship education’ was changed to ‘sexuality, consent, and relationships. At a hearing at the National Agency of Education preceding the revision of sex education, the participants were informed that there were two reasons why the government had asked for a change of terminology and content. One was the #metoo debate in 2017, which drew attention to how girls and women are regularly subjected to sexual abuse. The other was that the government wanted to add educational goals targeted at ‘honour-related violence and oppression’ (Skolverket 2022). The argument was that influences from honour cultures were a growing problem for many migrant students. Without denying the limitations and suffering of girls, women, and LGBTQI people who live in contexts governed by norms of honour, it is reasonable to understand the addition of this educational goal in relation to a public debate about the threats of Islam. In this debate, migrants, and especially Muslims, are described as threats to imagined Swedish values and traditions, not least gender equality and freedom for women (compare Motion 2023/24:366). This also formed part of the background to the inquiry into the establishment of new denominational free schools, where the justification was that the presence of Muslim schools in particular risked leading to segregation, parallel societies, a lack of equality, and alienation from Swedish society (Qvarsebo and Wenell 2018). Consequently, the view of religion that informs religion in relation to education reinforces the image that certain types of religiosity certain religiosity (individual conviction with only private consequences) are more compatible with Swedish society than other forms of religiosity (collective actions and ethics). This can be understood because of Swedish secularism, where religion is understood as a private personal conviction, and the presence of the Christian heritage of the Lutheran Church of Sweden is seen as significant for the nation Sweden (Asad 2013; Brown 2013; Taylor 2007; Reimers 2020). The othering of overt expressions of religiosity was apparent in a survey directed to youth who label themselves Christian believers. Forty-nine per cent answered that they had been abused – by peers or teachers – because of their religious convictions (Sveriges Kristna Råd 2020). That was a limited quantitative study, but similar results were reported in a qualitative study from one Swedish school (Vikdahl 2018), where students from the secular majority culture treated religious belonging and/or conviction as strange and funny deviations. In Swedish schools, it can be risky to present oneself as religious.

Concluding discussion on vulnerability, interdependence, and responsibility as an inclusive ethical base for sex education

The above account of conflicts and possibilities in the relation between sex education and differing religious bodies elucidates how the resistance against young people learning about reproduction, contraceptives, and gender and sexuality norms is a power struggle. Although there is nothing explicitly religious in sex education, religious representatives fear that the teaching undermines their authority. With a parallel to Asad’s (2013) and Mahmood’s (2013) analysis of publications of cartoons of Mohammad, conflicts about compulsory sex education can be resolved, or at least made more manageable, if the parties recognise that they are arguing from very different positions about the meaning and limits of religion. Where proponents of sex education see themselves as free from religion, this is stated from a specific and limited position where religiosity is understood as individual private conviction. And where the opponents see the subject as a threat to religious values, what they oppose might not be sex education but the secular religious norm, which does not take religious beliefs into account. Hereby, sex education becomes a symbol that meets religious resistance. Consequently, it is important to understand and explain one’s own position and to listen to and seek to understand those who start from a different conception of religion.

Although I am a strong proponent of compulsory sex education, in this paper, my argument is that if the secular educational authorities and the religious authorities became aware of their differing presumptions about religion, the conflict might be less severe. The educational authorities might be more sensitive to religious elements in their presumptions and in what they perceive as traditions. From the religions they might become more aware of sexuality as embedded in social contexts. The religious authorities might be more sensitive to how religiously motivated sexual morality oppresses and causes harm, and they may also become more sensitive to traditional elements in what now is perceived as religion.

In Sweden, there is a risk that the curriculum and the public discourse about denominational schools, together with a strong insistence of freedom of religion, reinforces stereotypical ideas about religions and religiosity that take other forms than Swedish secularism. To counteract this, I would not argue for what Sell and Reiss (2022) call a faith-sensitive sex education which gives parents and bodies of faith a mandate to restrict the freedom of teachers in sex education. Instead, I agree with Rasmussen (2016) that critical perspectives are needed to scrutinise norms about young people, sex, and religion that are repeated and taken for granted in sex education. This pertains to how most discussions about sex education presume an individual-centred heterosexual understanding of sexuality portraying sexual desire and longing and ensuing sexual activity as a mandatory requirement and not a free option (compare option Bolander 2009). In a secular context like Swedish compulsory education, it is also important to scrutinise how pupils with religious backgrounds are misrepresented as either passive and chaste (not least Muslim girls and women, but also conservative evangelical girls and women), or as oversexed and predatory (Muslim boys and men) (Phillips et al. 2023). It calls for sensitivity regarding how the teaching might affect different categories of students; it should not refrain from challenging the students but should encourage them to explore different conceptions about themselves and others.

Central to all religion is that life is lived together with others, no one lives solely for themselves. In that sense, religion counteracts individualism by insisting that the human condition is signified not predominantly by rights but by vulnerability and interdependence (Butler 2015). Most examples of religiously motivated opposition to sex education draw on religion as sets of moral conduct. Drawing on Logstrup (1977), this is a reduced conception of religious ethics that is incompatible with responsibility; it consists of responding to demands from ‘the other’, which can be known or unknown humans, non-human animals, as well as the environment. A religiously anchored contribution to sex education need not be to forbid schools to raise the subject, nor to allow pupils to withdraw from class. Instead, it could be to base and frame the teaching on the vulnerability of all humans and the interdependence that conditions existence with others. Instead of prescribing or forbidding specific behaviours, it could be to identify what the conditions of vulnerability and interdependence demand from individuals and collectives. Many religious representatives argue that sexuality is a gift that must be handled responsibly. This does not mean that one should be forced to follow oppressive and discriminatory rules set out by priests, imams, or parents. It means managing one’s desires, feelings, and practices with respect for both oneself and others. It means acting responsibly. Such a framing of the subject area could strengthen the importance of the subject and at the same time remove prejudices.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eva Reimers

Eva Reimers is Professor of Educational Practice at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her background is in Religious Studies and Education, and she has a PhD in Communication Studies. These fields are brought together in her research, which focuses on norms and diversity in education as well as in other contexts, such as church, media, and death practices. Her recent publications include Reimers (2022), ‘Secularism and religious traditions in non-confessional Swedish preschools: entanglements of religion and cultural heritage’, British Journal of Religious Education, 42(3), 275–284; Martinsson and Reimers (2022), ‘Civil servants talk back – Political subjectivity and (Re)constructions of the nation’, Critical Sociology, 46(3), 429–442; Reimers, E. & Puskás, T. (2022), ‘Everyday nationalism in Swedish preschools: Something old, something new, and something borrowed’, Children’s Geographies, published online December 24.