29 Teaching and the Art of Living Together I the problem of fragmentation and can be tied to all efforts in the process of education. From a Christian viewpoint, it can be specifically tied to the Biblical call for reconciliation, as will be explored in Chapter 3. The conclusion of this section can be that only a broad, holistic approach to citizenship education matches the need for citizenship education as the art of creating social cohesion by inviting students to connect with others in a fragmented society, respecting fundamental differences in culture, ethnicity and basic life conceptions. Holistic, in this context, implies a non-reductionistic but integrative approach, not just aimed at cognitive knowledge but at the hands and heart as much as at the head, not individualistic but accounting for the community and the interplay of factors, both in the community and in the curriculum. 3. RESEARCH QUESTION AND CONTEXT The central question addressed in this study, which emerges from the discussion in the above sections, includes three repeatedly and consistently mentioned elements—namely, Christian citizenship education (the subject), modern fragmented society (the context) and the need for a holistic approach to education (the instrument). The resulting research question aims to investigate how a holistic approach to education (the instrument) can reinforce Christian citizenship education (the subject) in relation to the sociocultural context of a fragmented society (the context): How can a holistic approach to education reinforce Christian citizenship formation in the context of a modern, fragmented society? This central research question will be investigated by addressing three subquestions. The first elaborates on what was laid out in the initial section of this introduction: the specific challenge that a fragmented world presents to students in terms of teacher training. The second elaborates on the second section of this introduction, which referred to the need for a holistic answer. This sub-question makes use of the worldwide movement for WCD that was briefly mentioned above and can be seen as an actual proposal for (w)holistic education. The third sub-question entails an integration of the theoretical answers to the first two sub-questions concerning the practice of Christian teacher training, as based on a form of action research.
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