Page 83 - TWO OF A KIND • Erik Renkema

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND CELEBRATIONS IN DUTCH COOPERATION SCHOOL
1. Introduction
Like the rest of society in the Netherlands, Dutch schools face increasing
religious plurality in their student population (Hermans 2004). In classrooms,
students from different religious backgrounds and world views meet. This
plurality is seen as a challenge for religious education (Ipgrave 2004). 4 Like every other institution, a school has “a mission, vision and policy of its own
that are supported by certain values” (Mulder 2012, 37). We assume a connection between these values and everyday educational practice (Keast and Leganger- Krogstad 2006). Considering this, what can we say about the correlation between the school values on the one hand and the practice of religious education in the context of religious plurality on the other?
This plurality is particularly evident in Dutch cooperation schools, which are the product of a merger between secular public schools and religious nongovernment schools. The Dutch educational system is a pillarized one: a school is either a public or a nongovernment school. A public school is legally provided for by the government and is religiously neutral. Nongovernment schools are the result of private initiative of organizations and/or persons and are based upon a religious or philosophical orientation (Glenn and Zoontjens 2012). Several confessional denominations found schools that match their convictions. A recent development in Dutch education is the increase of the cooperation schools (Renkema, Mulder and Barnard 2016). Our previous research indicated plurality of the student population as a key characteristic of these schools. We investigated the core values of these schools, as well as motives and practices of religious education. Our focus was on religious education that was non- segregated, included all students, and maintained maximum religious diversity: in most cooperation schools non-affiliated and Christian. Our main conclusion was that there was a discrepancy between religious education and key school values of encounter and equality (Renkema, Mulder and Barnard 2017). This article looks at daily moments of contemplation that are segregated according to public education and confessional denominations and at celebrations that are organized for all students together. We have three reasons for this focus:
1. Until now, we have not explored religious celebrations as a form of religious education. Our focus was solely on the ‘moment of contemplation’:
a daily educational moment in which religious content is discussed and
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