Chapter 8 144 careful deliberations. The latest was explicitly highlighted and means that trainee teachers should be aware of the differences within Christianity and the Reformed tradition, not immediately pass judgment, be able to distinguish between major and minor issues, empathise with others, be able to weigh what is important, and be humble. This basically overlaps with the earlier conclusion that it would be valuable for teacher education to stimulate future and current teachers to think more about the tension issues related to mono-religious characteristics and religious diversity, and to teach them how to reflect on these issues so as to have more coherent professional ideals. Finally, what alumni and teacher educators mentioned is largely consistent with what is described in the literature about developing diversity competences among trainee teachers, although the main difference is that alumni and teacher educators are mainly concerned with internal rather than external religious diversity. In doing so, the aspect of ‘critical consciousness’ in the sense of focusing on social change, as found in the literature, is not reflected. Also, deepening one’s own faith is mentioned as a significant aspect by alumni and teacher educators, but did not emerge so strongly from the literature. Moreover, what has been said is more from the perspective of how the teachers deal with diversity among pupils, rather than how they can prepare pupils to effectively deal with religious others—so this might be an area for improvement in the orthodox Protestant teacher education programme. This seems to indicate that the theme of religious diversity in teacher education is primarily linked to religious socialisation and less so to citizenship education. Because of the growing importance of citizenship education and its challenges (see Chapter 1), especially for teachers in OPPSs, it would be worthwhile to enrich the perspectives on religious diversity within teacher education programmes by paying more attention to the perspective of citizenship education. 8.2 Theoretical Relevance I elaborate on two elements of the conclusion because they have important theoretical implications for the thus far limited body of knowledge around teachers positioned within mono-religious education, especially within OPPSs (see Section 1.4). These elements are teachers’ own role in the religious socialisation of children and the significance of internal religious diversity within the professionalism of teachers in OPPSs—issues that are also interrelated.
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