31 Teaching and the Art of Living Together I This premise was corroborated by exploratory research involving six senior students. The result of this exploratory research will be presented in Section 3 of Chapter 5. In 2020, this premise, while not then scientifically investigated or confirmed, led DCU to participate in an overarching project studying WCD as a ‘framework that promotes all dimensions of human development from early childhood, including physical, social, emotional, cognitive, spiritual, and values-based learning’ (NIVOZ Foundation, 2018, p. 5). DCU joined the project after having presented its proposal to combine WCD with the broad citizenship formation of its students, presuming that this combination would be fruitful for the curriculum renewal planned for 2022 onwards. This dissertation represents the theoretical and practical elaboration of that proposal especially for DCU, after participating in the research into WCD together with Hogeschool Leiden (Spring College), Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Windesheim (Teachers College) and the project leading NIVOZ Foundation. Although WCD is indicative of an international movement for (the study of) (w)holistic education, the specific project and DCU’s aim to enrich its curriculum renewal with a holistic Christian approach to citizenship formation places the study in the context of the Netherlands. This context can be taken as an example of a modern, fragmented, secularised Western society. As a small country, the Netherlands has always been known for its tolerance and respect for minorities (Weiner, 2015). Official reports showed that, in 2023, more than a quarter of the population (26.4 percent) had a migration background, with the majority of them coming from non-Western countries (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek [CBS], 2023). The country’s biggest cities, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, function as harbingers of even greater cultural and ethnical diversity. Between 2010 and 2020, the percentage of people with a migration background in those cities grew to over 50 percent. With 170 nationalities present in the cities, in a joint report, two aldermen spoke of hyper-diversity (Gemeente Rotterdam & gemeente Amsterdam, 2020, p. 5). In addition to increasing ethnic and cultural diversity, religious diversity has also grown rapidly in the Netherlands over the last few centuries. While at the start of the 20th century almost everybody was affiliated with either Protestant churches (60 percent) or the Roman Catholic church (35 percent), in 2017, for the first time, less than half of the population considered themselves to be part of a religious group (CBS, 2020). In 2022, again for the first time in Dutch history, a majority identified themselves as atheists or agnostics (Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau [SCP], 2022). In politics, the same trend has become visible. Until 1967, Christian parties held an absolute majority in Parliament, which declined to just 11 out of 150 seats in the 2023 election.
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