Abstract
This article provides information on the current Dutch educational system, paying special attention to the position of Islam in formal, non-formal and informal education. It briefly sketches the history of the so-called “pillarised educational system”, a system in which the 19th century Dutch Christian education system evolved into a compartmentalised system with the pillars of Catholic, Protestant and humanistic education. At the end of the 20th century, a fourth pillar of Islamic education was founded by Dutch Muslim parents. Convinced that religious upbringing in the family and participation in mosque youth clubs constituted only the beginning of the process of becoming a good Muslim, Moroccan and Turkish parents supported the foundation of formal Islamic education in Dutch Islamic schools. This article describes developments in formal, non-formal and informal Islamic education in the light of children’s rights to religious education and parents’ rights to religious upbringing. Religious identity development, including religious literacy training, is presented as an important aspect of educating children to be(come) good Muslims—a process in which parents at home, imams and volunteers at the mosque, as well as teachers at school, play an important role.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 374 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-12 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Religions |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 18 Apr 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Apr 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Special Issue: Islam and/in Education in the Netherlands.Funding Information:
Catholic parents, initially, favoured neutral state schools without a characteristic Protestant flavour but eventually decided to pursue the establishment of new Catholic schools in the second half of the 19th century (Bakker et al. 2006, p. 476). Public schools in those days were funded by the government. In contrast, no governmental financial support was made available for the newly established Christian schools until the late 19th century, when Protestants and Catholics joined forces in an attempt to obtain funding for their confessional schools (the “School Funding Controversy”, ibid., p. 477).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Funding
Catholic parents, initially, favoured neutral state schools without a characteristic Protestant flavour but eventually decided to pursue the establishment of new Catholic schools in the second half of the 19th century (Bakker et al. 2006, p. 476). Public schools in those days were funded by the government. In contrast, no governmental financial support was made available for the newly established Christian schools until the late 19th century, when Protestants and Catholics joined forces in an attempt to obtain funding for their confessional schools (the “School Funding Controversy”, ibid., p. 477).
Keywords
- children’s rights
- educational system
- Islamic formal education
- Islamic informal education
- Islamic non-formal education
- parents’ rights
- pedagogical civil society
