In the sociology of knowledge according to Berger and Luckmann, it is assumed that reality is socially constituted and must be renegotiated from one generation to the next (cf. Berger & Luckmann, 1969). The institution of school is not excluded from this process, which becomes apparent with the introduction of new curricula again and again. A few years ago, the curriculum 21 was introduced in the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland, irrespective of historical and confessional boundaries, which contributed to the harmonisation of learning content. Religious education in particular experienced an innovation, which was replaced by the subject "Ethics, Religions, Community" (ERG). Religious education in the singular is now a thing of the past and has been transformed into the teaching of religions. The authors of curriculum 21 take it for granted that children are surrounded by a heterogeneous environment and have to deal with many religious traditions and world views. It is still worthwhile to deal with the Christian traces in society, but a lesson that deals with religions cannot stop at other world views. Adolescents should be introduced to different religions and thus be made capable of tolerance and democracy (Lehrplan 21). In the curriculum of 2003, religious education still focused on the Bible, the knowledge of which seemed indispensable for general education and the children were supposed to get to know the Christian cultural heritage (Lehrplan 2003). Social realities with their institutional knowledge are subject to constant processes of shift (cf. Foucault, 1974, p. 13). These processes of change are particularly noticeable in textbooks and their contents. Drawing on the sociology of knowledge, this means that the content of textbooks can change over time. Whereas in 2000 just over 75 per cent of the Swiss still belonged to the Roman Catholic or Protestant Church, the balance of power has shifted drastically in the last 20 years. Today, just under 54 per cent of Swiss citizens still feel they belong to a traditional Christian church (Bundesamt für Statistik). In 2023, we will encounter a diverse religious landscape in Switzerland, and this presentation is based on the assumption that the diversity of Swiss social relations should also have an impact on the content of religious textbooks. Textbook contents are not random products, but rather sources that are constantly renegotiated by various actors and textbook developers in social-historical discourse (cf. Wiater, 2003).

Using the example of the religious figure called Mary, which is exposed to different interpretive sovereignties beyond interdenominational boundaries and therefore it can be assumed that the perception of this person can manifest itself in different ways in a certain social construct in religious textbooks, this contribution to textbook research aims to show how representations of Mary in image and word in the textbooks of the curriculum 2003 and the curriculum 21 come to light and do or do not do justice to a society of diversity. Thus, this paper is interested in the following questions:

How is the religious figure of Mary portrayed in the textbooks of curriculum 2003 and curriculum 21? Do they do justice to a heterogeneous Swiss society? Could there have been shifts in the representations of Mary in the period between 2003 and today? And if so, what social events might have contributed to this?

Since a pluralistic society changes the interrelationships among the various religious institutions and promotes ecumenical as well as interreligious exchange (cf. Berger, 2014, p. 48), it can be assumed that the representations of Mary must also be affected by this fact.

In order to get to the bottom of these questions, the researcher invokes grounded theory according to Glaser and Strauss by processing the textbook texts in an inductive manner (cf. Strübing, (2014). In doing so, the author makes use of a total of eight religion textbooks that were and are used in the 2003 curriculum and in curriculum 21. From the text, codes are to be worked out that are finally assigned to the category of Mary in a cumulative manner and enable reliable statements on the synchronous as well as diachronic show between 2003 and today on the textbook contents. This qualitative content analysis will be followed by a discursive classification in order to get to the bottom of the body of knowledge on Mary in religious education textbooks with the possible shifts (cf. Rössler 2017; Mayring, 2015).

When the curriculum was introduced in 2003, around 75 per cent of the Swiss counted themselves as belonging to a traditional Christian community. Since the 1970s, there have been tendencies towards religious mixing and secularisation, but in German-speaking Switzerland, the majority could be assumed to have a Christian worldview (Bundesamt für Statistik). Thus, in the religious textbooks from the 2003 curriculum, children were taught a depiction of Mary that was within the Christian-Jewish horizon. However, the authors of the textbooks did not just leave it at the traditional biblical traditions, but added Marian stories of their own design in order to present the role of Mary to the schoolchildren in a more comprehensible way, which could be linked to pedagogical considerations (Gott hat viele Namen, 1997, p. 300). Twenty years later, the religious landscape in Switzerland has changed. In 2023, for example, just under half of the Swiss still belong to a Christian denomination, a drop of over 20 per cent since the beginning of the year 2000. An increase in other religious traditions and non-denominational fews has emerged (Bundesamt für Statistik). The analysis of textbooks from Curriculum 21 onwards shows that representations of the Virgin Mary have opened up in favour of an interdenominational or even a cross-religious view and have expanded beyond denominational boundaries to include Islamic and Hindu representations (Blickpunkt 2, 2013, pp. 84-87). These facts show that the representations of Mary in current religious education textbooks can be fitted into the social reality of a pluralistic composition. In contrast to 20 years ago, these have changed from a Christian-Jewish centred and interdenominational to an interreligious approach. This shows that the role of Mary in religious education textbooks in German-speaking Switzerland is changeable according to social developments and is currently compatible with a society of religious diversity.

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