Page 153 - TWO OF A KIND • Erik Renkema

concerning the relation between values and practice. And next to these, we designed a participatory action research in order to detect what motivations and challenges teachers face when they are asked to create an experimental celebration that can help them expressing their values in everyday practice. We distinguished the following sub-questions:
a) How do cooperation schools construct their identity and what are the implications of this identity for the organization of religious education?
b) How are the key values of a cooperation school and of its teachers exerted in
the practice of religious education?
c) How do teachers of cooperation schools express school values and their
vision on encounter and dialogue in segregated moments of contemplation
and in the organization and performance of a collective celebration?
d) What are the teachers’ motives for pursuing an experimental celebration at a 7
cooperation school, what concepts and design requirements are involved, and how can this celebration be evaluated from a theory of dialogue and from the teachers’ perspective?
e) What is the contribution of Dewey’s concept of democracy to the reflection on values and religious education at cooperation schools?
As described in the conceptual framework of our introduction chapter we studied two theoretical aspects of school identity: values concerning religious diversity and religious education. We considered both the dealing with religious diversity and the concept of religious education as identity markers of the school. We will now elaborate on these concepts by making clear what results we detected concerning these concepts and we relate them to scientific discourse.
2.1. Values concerning religious diversity in cooperation schools
Our research about the values of cooperation schools for educating concentrated on two sources: key values of the school identity as formulated in formal documents of the schools and key values of the school identity as described by principals and teachers. We have three findings to present concerning the values of cooperation schools.
First, formal school documents, teachers and principals describe a cooperation school as a community where living together is to be practiced and, in line with this perspective, emphasize the school value of encounter in education in general
CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION
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