Page 41 - TWO OF A KIND • Erik Renkema
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MERGING IDENTITIES. EXPERIMENTS IN DUTCH PRIMARY EDUCATION
1. Introduction: religious identity and primary cooperation schools
Like all education in The Netherlands primary education (for children of 4-12 2 years) is characterized by its duality: a Dutch school can be either a school for
public education (a public school) or a school for non-government education.
The Dutch constitutional law in Article 23 indicates that, on one hand, public
education is initiated and provided for by the government, and that, on the other hand, private organizations or persons can found a school based upon a religious or philosophical orientation: non-government education (Glenn and De Groof 2012; Noorlander and Zoontjens 2011; Zoontjens 2003). A public school is legally provided for by the government, a non- government school is a result of a private initiative (Glenn and De Groof 2012). Since a few decades, however, there is an exception to this common system (Glenn and Zoontjens 2012). Some schools for non-government and for public education are merging or are considering merging. A school that is a product of this kind of merger is, by law, called a ‘cooperation school’.
When a religiously neutral school (i.e. public) merges with a religious school, two distinctive identities come together to form a new school. The central question in this article is, therefore: How do these schools construct their identity and what are the implications of this identity for the organization of religious education?
To answer this question we will first need to discuss the precise definition of ‘religious identity’ (2.1), explain religious values and religious education of public (2.2) and non-government education (2.3) and provide an outline of the background of a cooperation school and its religious identity (3). Then, we can explore empirically in what way these cooperation schools answer this question (4).
2. The Dutch educational system and cooperation schools from legal perspective
Article 23 of the Dutch Constitution warrants the existence of both non- government and public schools. In 2006, this article was amended to include the cooperation schools. However, the duality of ideals continues to exist within the cooperation schools because the identity of both public as well as non-government education has to be identifiable (Eerste Kamer der
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