Page 67 - TWO OF A KIND • Erik Renkema
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KEY VALUES OF DUTCH COOPERATION SCHOOL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
- The school organises collective religious education for all students, both the
moment of contemplation and celebrations at Christmas and Easter. Before the
summer of 2013, the moment of contemplation was segregated along the lines
of the original school classifications (public and Protestant); it is still referenced 3 as such in school documents. During the 2013-2014 school year, the moment of contemplation was integrated for all students together; according to the principal,
students could learn more from each other that way and cooperation would be optimal. Since that time, the teachers have recently had to deal with new and increased diversity in their classrooms; religious and secular students meet. - School documents mention equality and respect as key values of the school identity.
We regard this one school as representative for other cooperation schools that meet these two criteria: in our former research we detected these type of cooperation schools as the most dominant (Renkema, Mulder and Barnard 2016). This school shows us teachers’ values and practices of religious education when a secular and a religious view on life and on education merge. We therefore investigate this case as a rich illustration of this type.
3.3. Design
Detailed information of one single case provides us with data about religious education in the context of diversity, in this case of a school that offers collective religious education. Examining how key school values are related to the practice of religious education, we compare this data with other cases in this context in our ongoing research about cooperation schools.
We conducted a qualitative study with multiple sources: the study of school documents and the lesson guide for religious education, the video recording and subsequent analysis of the moment of contemplation and the teacher interviews and subsequent analysis. The social and substantive perspectives were leading.
3.3.1. School Documents
The school guide outlines the formal educational policy (Mason 2002). There is a tension between the formal identity of Dutch schools and the religious diversity of their student population (Bakker and Rigg 2004). Therefore, we ask how key values as formulated in school documents are related to everyday practice: do we see this same tension in a cooperation school? We
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