Chapter 5 90 Professional ideals As role definitions are related to what teachers feel themselves responsible for, we now introduce the concept of professional ideals since this is about what teachers are seeking for in education (De Ruyter & Kole, 2010). Ideals are “images of excellence that are not yet realized and they are aims or goals we deeply desire to realize” (De Ruyter, 2003, p. 468). Teachers’ professional ideals then can be seen as the driving forces that give teachers direction, motivation, and inspiration to be a teacher (De Ruyter & Kole, 2010). Professional ideals refer to different aspects of the teaching job; for example, the ultimate ends to which teachers aspire or the way they want to do their work (De Ruyter, 2007; De Ruyter & Kole, 2010). Moreover, the professional ideals can stem from different domains, such as the social, economic, pedagogical, or religious (De Ruyter, 2003, 2006). Since we assess how teachers perceive their contribution to religious socialization, we are interested in how they describe ideals from the religious domain in relation to ideals that stem from other domains (Markus et al., 2021a). 5.3 Method Research design and participants This explorative and descriptive study is part of a research project that questions how teachers in OPPSs deal with their own religious community and its convictions and with the religious diversity of society. We had extensive individual interviews with sixteen fourth and fifth grade44 teachers from fifteen different OPPSs. Every participant was interviewed twice during the period from April 22, 2015 to February 18, 2016. There were seven female and nine male participants who ranged in age from 23 to 59 years (average: 34.5); having teaching experience ranging from 1.5 to 35 years (average: 11.3). Sampling and procedure We aimed at capturing the widest possible range of ideas across the various OPPSs and not for generalization (Crouch & McKenzie, 2006). Therefore, we based our sample on the maximum variation of different orthodox Protestant denominations,45 the sizes of the villages or cities, and the presence of orthodox Protestant believers in the school’s 44 The fifth grade is the penultimate year of primary school. 45 Namely, reformatorische scholen (Reformed schools), gereformeerde scholen (Reformed Liberated schools), and part of the protestants-christelijke scholen (Protestant schools). In their mission statements, they all refer to the Reformed (Calvinistic) doctrines.
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