A plea for inclusive worldview education in all schools

Abstract

Taking personhood education ('Bildung') of students as the aim of schools, the author argues that worldview education should form an integral part of this education in all schools. It is shown that such a conceptualisation of worldview education is adequately combinable with citizenship education. In worldview-citizenship education the emphasis is first of all on students' appropriation and (continuous) development of their own worldview. A second important aim of this modus of education is that students should learn to live together in the context of the school as an embryonic society which represents different worldviews. With this two-fold aim the individual or personal and the social or communal side of the pedagogical coin are kept together. In the final part a concrete example of an inclusive practice of worldview citizenship education is described in a partnership of a Christian, a state, and an Islamic elementary school in the area of Amsterdam South-East.