Page 54 - TWO OF A KIND • Erik Renkema
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CHAPTER 2
Eight of the seventeen principals indicate that their religious education is a combination of these options.
Six schools organize religious education by offering education about different religions. One principal indicates that this education is the public alternative to educationaccordingtotheCatholictradition.Itseemsremarkablethatmoreprincipals (nine) state that they support values of public education by offering this education. One other, very dominant, result can be based on the answers to this first question. As Fig. 4 shows, eleven principals indicate that religious education is segregated according to the religious origins of the merged schools, that “several times a week, separate lessons in religious education are provided according to different religious backgrounds by a teacher who is related to this specific background.” Or, as one respondent answers: “Parents can choose once a year for either religious education according to Christian or education according to the public identity” (Respondent E). This education is provided by the regular class teacher, and not by a teacher who is sent by a religious group.
Surprisingly this result does not entirely correspond to the non-response. Although the online documents do not all clarify in what way religious education is organized, at least seven schools offer religious education in a collective way: one program for all students. To this at least three of them add a voluntarily religious education according to the Protestant or Catholic denomination to this. The documents of two schools mention that they organize religious education segregatedly, according to the religious origins of the merged schools.
Fig. 5 N=17
(more answers possible)
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