194 Chapter 5 for a modern, fragmented society that was presented in the introduction to this dissertation (Section 3). Their insights were helpful in the evaluation of WCD in Chapter 3 and confirmed this evaluation, including its ctitical remarks. WCD helps Christian pedagogy to prepare for contexts with much higher levels of diversity and complexity, thereby providing a way to respond positively to the needs of fragmentation. However, from the perspective of Christian education, it also requires correction, as the very core of Christian education is the Christian view of God, man, community and relationships. 5.4 CONCLUSION This chapter started by proving the initial claim made in the introduction that the nature and context of DCU’s teacher training are appropriate for a meaningful case study for this research. The layered problem of fragmentation, as described in Chapter 1, applies fully to the strong secularising and individualising tendencies in Dutch society over the past few decades. The relative cultural and directional homogeneity the country once exhibited has given way to much higher levels of diversity and complexity. Regarding this diversity and complexity, DCU, coming from a context of strong reliance on implicit socialising forces, struggles with a felt need to invest more in subjectification to combine its own faith-based formational processes with its responsibilities in the field of citizenship formation. The baseline survey conducted at the start of DCU’s participation in the overarching research consortium on WCD reveals how students, together with their teachers, live in a socialising social bubble that separates them from the challenges of high (urban) sociocultural diversity and complexity. It also shows that both groups (students and teachers) are partly aware of this and feel the need for a more open, holistic acquaintance in the curriculum with this social reality, although elements of resistance are also visible in the student group. Exploratory research performed by six senior students and the analysis of their subsequent focus group interview supports the conclusion that WCD provides for a more holistic approach that is helpful in responding to the challenges of high diversity and complexity; however, it is also necessary for less diverse contexts. It helps to integrate the growing range of teacher duties, which, for the Christian teacher, can lead to the better connection of these duties with one’s own identity and beliefs. Parting from this identity, the exploratory research shows the importance of a specifically Christian conception of and approach to WCD, to make it cohere with the (trainee) teacher’s identity and beliefs and the deep motivation they provide for being active in education. In this case, WCD itself becomes a motivating force in such
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