Discourses on Cultural and Religious Heritage in Religious Education in Scandinavia.

Public schools, today as before, are key fora for nation state building, citizenship building, and identity construction.  Following some kind of secularization the good citizen, in e.g. Scandinavia,  is no longer primarily or only a good Christian, and the school at large no longer serves to support and complement the Christian church in its effort to produce and reproduce good Christians. However, even in the more or less secular Scandinavian states and schools, the non-confessional school subject (under whatever name) dealing with religion is seen and used as a key instrument in nation building and identity construction. The paper analyzes discourses on religious and cultural heritage in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, with special regard to how these discourses are linked to simulataneous discourses on globalization, pluralization as well as citizenship edutaion and intercultural understanding.