Religion, spirituality, or stress management? Mindfulness and meditation in Swedish textbooks for Religious Education and Physical Education and Health

Manon Hedenborg White; Torun Mattsson

doi:10.1080/01416200.2026.2618575

Religion, spirituality, or stress management? Mindfulness and meditation in Swedish textbooks for Religious Education and Physical Education and Health

Manon Hedenborg White, Torun Mattsson

British Journal of Religious Education January 27, 2026 DOI: 10.1080/01416200.2026.2618575 (opens in new tab)

Relevant Not relevant

Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract

Characteristics	Qualitative study Peer reviewed
Population	Swedish textbooks for Religious Education and Physical Education and Health
Topics	Meditation
Keywords	Religious education Physical education Stress linguistics Physical health Mindfulness meditation Psychotherapist Clinical psychology Spiritual development Stress management
Key findings	Mindfulness and meditation are constructed in differing and contradictory ways across Swedish RE and PEH textbooks, as spiritual/religious content in RE and as stress management in PEH.

Abstract

The aim of this article is to advance knowledge on how mindfulness and meditation are understood in the educational system, an important yet under-explored context for these phenomena in Sweden and internationally. This is done by means of an exploratory and qualitative study of how mindfulness and meditation are constructed in Swedish textbooks for Religious Education (RE) and Physical Education and Health (PEH), analysing how these concepts are situated and transformed. Though ostensibly two very different subjects, RE and PEH are both mandatory throughout Swedish compulsory school and are included in all national upper-secondary school programmes. The topic of mindfulness and meditation provides a conceptual overlap between PEH and RE, and is presented in differing and contradictory ways in textbooks for the respective subjects. In RE textbooks, mindfulness and meditation are presented in the context of Buddhism and contemporary spirituality, while in PEH the practices are understood as stress management. This presents didactical challenges for teachers, but teaching on mindfulness and meditation also provides opportunities for synergy and curriculum cohesion.

Comparable studies

Other qualitative studies on meditation, most cited first.

Study	Year	Design	Participants
The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists Western Buddhist meditation practitioners and experts in Theravāda, Zen, and Tibetan...	2017	Qualitative study with mixed-methods
The Effects of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction on Nurse Stress and Burnout Nurses in a hospital system	2004	Implementation study with mixed methods
An exploratory mixed methods study of the acceptability and effectiveness of mindfulness -based cognitive therapy for patients with active depression and anxiety in primary care Primary care patients with recurrent depression or recurrent depression and anxiety	2006	Exploratory mixed methods study	n = 13
A qualitative study of mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy for depression Participants in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in a mental-health context	2001	Qualitative study	n = 7
Effortless awareness: using real time neurofeedback to investigate correlates of posterior cingulate cortex activity in meditators' self-report Meditators	2013	Qualitative study using grounded theory methodology

Citations in the library

Cited by 1

Bridging the Gap Between Contemporary and Buddhist Definitions of Mindfulness: A Scoping Review Mindfulness October 3, 2026

Cites 9

and 4 more in the library