Citizenship education: understanding the making and re-making of Dutch citizenship in the classroom

Abstract

There has been an outburst of interest in democratic citizenship and citizenship education in the past 30 years in the Netherlands, which focuses on practices for active citizenship. The Dutch government is concerned with the growing individualization, a downturn of participation in society and the enormous internal cultural diversity. Therefore, the law of December 9, 2005 (Stb. 678) regulates the obligation of schools for primary and secondary education to contribute to the integration of students into Dutch society. On February 1, 2006, this law came into force (Stb. 36). This means that from this date on, primary and secondary schools are required to pay attention to active citizenship and social integration in their curriculum, to create a vision on how students, with diverse cultural backgrounds, can participate within society as citizens (Ministerie van OCW 2005, 2; Onderwijsraad 2003). Through citizenship education, the government wants to enhance social cohesion by creating a shared national identity and civil belonging in society to let people pursue the interest of the community (Anderson 2006; Huppatz, Hawkins, and Matthews 2015, 8; Onderwijsraad 2003). As there are no clear guidelines, schools can shape their curriculum themselves. I have studied in detail how citizenship education comes into practice at school level. This thesis examines and compares Dutch citizenship education policy on a national level to local outcomes thereof, and analyzes the extent to which they foster inclusive or exclusive notions of citizenship. Through ethnographic data of a three-month long study on a culturally diverse primary school in Gelderland, I argue that even though the aim of the policy is to create a national shared citizenship and social cohesion, the influence of politics and socio-political debates on students actually creates experiences of exclusion and discrimination.