De school als oefenplaats voor democratie. Een mixed-methods evaluatieonderzoek naar de werkzaamheid van een schoolbreed programma voor democratische burgerschapsvorming in de basisschool

Abstract

Because of increasing diversity and individualisation, democracy and citizenship are becoming important topics in western societies. Since 2006, Dutch schools are obliged to pay attention to ‘active citizenship and social integration’ in their curriculum. However, little is known about how schools can implement citizenship education in their schools, and what the influence is of citizenship education on school climate and children’s competences. In this light a school-wide program – called Democratic Citizenship in Primary School – aiming at educating democratic citizenship in primary schools was developed and implemented in eight schools in the Netherlands. The schools differed in studentpopulation, denomination and urbanicity. A one-year mixed methods evaluation research was conducted to gain insight in ‘what works’, ‘how it works’ and ‘for whom it works’. To obtain a broad understanding of the influence of the program a quasi-experimental design (with pretest, posttest and eight control schools) was used, measuring classroom climate, citizenship behaviour and citizenship competence of students. To obtain a deeper understanding of underlying processes within the program, qualitative data were gathered on implementation processes and the lynchpin intervention: Classroom Meetings. From the results a number of conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, it can be concluded that the DBB program - after one school year - ensures more pupil voice in the classroom, but only in certain contexts (such as upper-grade level groups, groups with a pupil population with mainly native parents with average or high educational level and classrooms in non-urban areas). The Classroom Meeting turns out to be an important activity for developing a democratic community, by giving pupils a voice and a say regarding everyday topics. The work method and the role of the teacher are determinative for the democratic course of the Classroom Meeting. In addition to this, it turns out that the program contributes to the development of a positive social-emotional climate in the classroom. In contrast to our first conclusion, this influence especially becomes clear in the upper-grade level groups and groups with a pupil population with mainly immigrant and low educated parents. Although not investigated in this thesis, it is likely that activities such as jointly making agreements regarding rules of conduct, a positive approach to pupils and giving responsibility to pupils through community tasks, stimulates the development of a positive classroom climate. The influence of the program on the behaviour and competences of pupils cannot be determined unambiguously. The identified influences in the various studies are different, depending on the school context, the research method and the perspective of the respondent. These results contribute significantly to the (still small) empirical knowledge base of citizenship education. Moreover, the results of this research will help in further developing and implementing school wide programs for democratic citizenship education.