Page 89 - TWO OF A KIND • Erik Renkema

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND CELEBRATIONS IN DUTCH COOPERATION SCHOOL
remained unchanged. Because of the fact that the instruments remained mainly the same, we used the data from this school of this test as genuine data.
For reliability reasons, we discussed our main conclusions from the analysis in a reliability test with the respondents at the end of our research.
4.3.1. Questionnaire 4 We sent the link to an online questionnaire to all teachers of the participating
schools. No distinction was made in teachers who are responsible for the moments
of contemplation according to public education and to Christian education. Next
to this we provided them with information about the objectives of the research and the questionnaire. This questionnaire consisted of multiple open and closed questions and covered five main themes, related to the main theoretical concepts: objectives of religious education, diversity in religious education, encounter in religious education, motives for segregated religious education, motives for collective celebrations. The respondents were requested to answer the question within 2-3 weeks.
4.3.2. Interviews with key informants
We used the semi-structured interview (both with a key informant and the focus group)togatherinformationaboutthepersonalmotivesandvaluesoftherespondents that emerged from the questionnaires. These interviews focused on the celebration. In the interview with the key informant on preparing for the celebration, the main topics were: student involvement, attention for diversity, attention for objectives of the celebration, attention for students’ life experiences, attention for personal views of the participants. The key informant was the teacher or principal who is responsible for the organization of school celebrations. She or he is the one who chairs meetings about this organization and convenes colleagues for this meetings. All interviews were recorded, and lasted between 13 and 23 minutes.
4.3.3. Interviews in focus groups
All teachers of the schools who had been responsible for organizing a recent celebration were subjected to an interview in small focus groups. Also the key informant was part of this group. Our aim was to explore what we can say about this ritual in the light of our theoretical concepts, addressing these topics:
87