165 The Methodology of Theological Action Research 4 were given was to choose something along the lines of the general topic of study. Partner schools At the start of the project, two schools were selected that matched the criteria and were ready to collaborate for several years. One of them is a Christian school located in one of the biggest cities in the Netherlands, with a student population of 250 from over 30 different ethnic backgrounds. The other is a Reformed Christian school, also located in an urban area, with a student population if 350 from over 20 different ethnic backgrounds. Both schools will admit children with non-Christian religious convictions, provided their parents are willing to sign a declaration of respect for the school’s Christian identity. At both schools, the Bible counts as God’s infallible revelation and, therefore, as normative theology. At the second school, as at DCU, the Reformed Christian identity means that the school subscribes to the Calvinistic confession as expressed in the Three Forms of Unity: the Catechism of Heidelberg, Belgic Confession and Canons of Dordt. The director of school 1 joined the outsider team for the TAR project, as did two teachers. The director of school 2 also joined, again with two teachers. The TAR project, thus, was able to start with a total of ten members: six in the outsider team (two school directors and four school teachers) and four in the insider team (three teacher trainers, including two pedagogues and one theologian, and one teacher-researcher). During two start-up meetings held in the spring of 2021, one via Teams because of COVID-19 restrictions and the other at school 1, the team members got to know each other and learned about TAR and its characteristics. In the second warm-up meeting, the team decided to limit the scope of the research to the citizenship formation of DCU students, instead of including in a more direct form the citizenship formation of students at both primary schools, focusing on the formation of trainee teachers and, only through this, impacting the formation of students. In most TAR projects, the main researcher forms part of the outsider team, which makes such projects outsider led. In the second warm-up meeting, the team decided that this TAR project should be insider led. Due to this joint decision, my personal leadership role in the insider team became the leadership role for the whole group. When the insider and outsider groups met separately, it was generally one of the school directors who led the outsider team. During the warm-up meetings, nine follow-up meetings were scheduled for the 2021–2022 school year. At the end of this period, a proposal was excepted to continue during the year 2022–2023, albeit with a lower
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw