4.1.1. Changes in understanding of CE
Teachers' concepts of CE in the first interview compared to the
second interview showed changes for more than half of all teachers
(ten teachers). Besides, teachers emphasized they became more
aware of their concepts and their existing (implicit) practices, or
developed their understanding of CE during the project. Even
before the question about concepts of CE came up, almost all
teachers spontaneously mentioned an increasing awareness about
citizenship education as a result of the project. A striking finding
was that eleven of the seventeen teachers explained that before the
project started they had less, or no idea of what citizenship education
was about, telling us for example: “I'd never thought very
carefully about CE before. The term CE always sounded like not
interesting” (Secondary education teacher history); “I discovered
what the legal demands are for CE. It made me think about what CE
is about” (secondary education teacher history). This is surprising
since CE has been legislated since 2006 in the Netherlands (Dutch
Ministry of Education and Science, 2005) and one would suppose
teachers would have given CE some consideration.