We still have only a limited understanding of the effectiveness of schools in promoting citizenship, the factors explaining this effectiveness and the way in which these aspects interact. Using elaborate cross-sectional data from students, teachers, team leaders and school leaders at 78 Dutch secondary schools, this study empirically examines a school effectiveness model of citizenship education in order to achieve a more comprehensive explanation of citizenship competence acquisition. Using multilevel structural equation models, we analyze direct and indirect school-level predictors of student knowledge, attitudes and self-evaluated skills regarding citizenship. Four aspects of citizenship education are examined: the school’s policies regarding citizenship education, its teaching practices, and its professional and pedagogical learning environment (i.e., teaching community and classroom climate). With respect to school policies, positive effects are found for the attention paid to citizenship education in staff meetings. The professional learning environment is related to students’ citizenship competences mainly indirectly, via the average classroom climate. Effects of teaching practices vary: more emphasis on monitoring is more frequently found at schools with lower average levels of citizenship competences, whereas schools that let students choose their own topics in class have on average higher levels of citizenship competences.

This paper studies to what extent participating in days for national commemoration and celebration is associated with feelings of national belonging, and to what extent this is comparable across generations and ethnic groups. Utilizing data from a national survey (N = 4,505), three major national days in the Netherlands are examined. We find that whereas participation in Queen's Day is associated with national belonging for all generations, for Remembrance Day this holds only for the generation born between 1945 and 1955, and for Liberation Day for the generations born after 1955. Moreover, for citizens with a non-Western origin, participating in national days is associated with national belonging more strongly than for citizens with a native Dutch or other Western background. These findings highlight the importance of paying attention to potential group differences in the association between participation in national days and feelings of national belonging.

This study explores to what extent varying levels of host national day participation among immigrants can be explained by previous participatory experiences related to their country of origin, in addition to socio-cultural factors related to the current country of residence. Utilising data from a large online immigrant panel, we concentrate on two prominent national days in the Netherlands: Remembrance Day and Liberation Day. On these days, Dutch society commemorates victims of the Second World War and celebrates freedom, respectively. Our results indicate that Dutch national day participation among immigrants is determined largely by previous familiarity with commemorating and celebrating through participation in holidays specific to immigrants’ country of origin. These findings highlight the need to place more emphasis on the role of previous participatory experiences when examining immigrants’ current patterns of participation in the host society.

Previous studies suggest that secondary school students in vocational tracks receive fewer opportunities to practice with critical-democratic citizenship than students in academic tracks. Less is known about the role of critical-democratic citizenship education in tertiary vocational education and training (VET). Utilizing questionnaire data collected in 2021 amongst 350 Dutch VET students, a structural equation model was constructed in which we conjointly studied to what extent differences in students’ attitudes towards societal awareness and sound opinion forming are associated with 1) students’ experiences regarding the curriculum content, 2) openness of the classroom climate for discussion, 3) autonomy and structure provided by the teacher and 4) intrinsic value of the experienced citizenship education. This latter element was found to be especially relevant, as it was associated with both societal awareness and sound opinion forming, whereas classroom climate played only a minor role. Students’ societal awareness was also associated with both the experienced curriculum content and the autonomy and structure offered by the teacher. These results offer important practical implications to further improve opportunities for critical-democratic citizenship in VET.