Political Liberalism, Civic Education and the Dutch Government

Abstract

Recently two members of the Dutch government, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Education and Science, have stressed publicly the importance of “the transmission of norms and values”. In this paper their public statements are evaluated from the perspective of a liberal conception of civic education. Such an assessment seems to be fair, since both people are, in their public role as ministers, key representatives of a liberal constitutional state. First, a brief analysis of the concept of civic education is presented. Subsequently, an explanation of the central aims of liberal education for citizenship is given. Finally, the educational statements of the ministers are tested against the explained liberal conception.