Chapter 8 146 socialisation, whereas speaking about religious diversity is related to citizenship education (cf. Sections 3.4 and 8.1). If this were indeed the case, it would be valuable for theoretical discourse to pay more attention to the normative nature of citizenship education and education in general (cf. Sections 1.3 and1.5), as good citizenship is founded in one’s religious or non-religious worldview (cf. Bakker & Heijstek-Hofman, 2019; Bertram-Troost, 2021; Miedema, 2006, 2010; Miedema et al., 2013; Van Waveren, 2020; Veugelers, 2003). Impact of internal religious diversity Second, this study shows that even in strong religious communities and in OPPSs there is ample diversity. It becomes clear at several points that this internal religious diversity has a significant impact for participants, both teachers and pupils. Teachers, for example, indicated that it can be difficult to deal with the religious differences within the school and that they considered it an important contributionof teacher education toprepare themfor dealingwith this (see Section 7.6). Pupils tend to regard each other and find small differences to criticize, as observed by teachers (see Section 4.7). Moreover, teachers consider it an important goal in religious socialisation that pupils learn to deal with mutual differences (see Chapter 5). Whereas mono-religious education in the literature is described as being homogeneous (see Section 1.4), my findings suggest that diversity is indeed an issue with considerable impact within mono-religious education. The presence of internal diversity within OPPSs is not surprising if we take into account the observed increase of religious diversity within religious communities (see Section 1.2). However, my study also provides insights into the meaning of this diversity, namely that teaching how to deal with this diversity is in fact a core element of what teachers describe as their professional role in religious socialisation. An underlying principle here might be that although the religious differences are relatively small, OPPS teachers experience them as serious since these differences are unexpected—OPPSs are namely associated with cohesion of norms and values, and shared faith (see Section 4.7). In situations with bigger religious differences— representation of different religions and worldviews manifested within society, as in schools with multi-religious characteristics—the differences are foreseeable and may therefore not necessarily have a greater impact on those involved. My research likewise shows that the impact of this internal religious diversity can be similar to that of external religious diversity in other situations, namely if the competences listed for learning to deal with internal religious diversity within the preservice teacher education programmeappear to correspond largelywith those listed for dealingwithexternal religious diversity (see Section 7.7). Dealing with internal religious diversity does not appear to come
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