oa Eenheid of verdeeldheid? - Burgerschap in een gedifferentieerd voortgezet onderwijssysteem

United or dispersed? Civic competences in a differentiated schooling system .

This paper examines whether there are differences in civic competences between secondary school children on the basis of school type, gender, ethnicity and parents’ education, and whether such differences are smaller in schools that devote greater attention to civic education. Using survey data form students and school principals in fifteen secondary schools in the Netherlands, we examine civic competences relating to ‘democratic behaviour’, ‘socially responsible behaviour’, and ‘dealing with social differences’. Our analyses show that students differ significantly in how they judge their own competences in these domains. Furthermore, differences in socially responsible behaviour between students of different levels of parental education are smaller in schools that pay much attention to civic education. No evidence for mitigating effects of a school’s attention to civic education emerged for either democratic behaviour or responsible behaviour.