Citizenship in public, non-religious private and religious private schools. A comparison of student citizenship competences in Dutch secondary education

Social outcomes of education are crucial for both the individual and society. This paper focuses on the extent to which state-funded (non-)religious private and public schools differ in citizenship outcomes. Data were used on 123 schools from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2016 in the Netherlands. Using multilevel analyses, we tested whether possible differences in school orientation can be understood from the characteristics of the population. The results of our study do not show systematic differences in the citizenship competences of students. However, private religious schools with an orthodox Protestant profile differ in terms of the citizenship attitudes of their students. This relation cannot be explained by the religious views of students as such and is also found when controlling for their socio-economic background and religiousness.