EDUCATIONAL PLURALISM - A HISTORICAL STUDY OF SO-CALLED PILLARIZATIONIN THE NETHERLANDS, INCLUDING A COMPARISON WITH SOME DEVELOPMENTS IN SOUTH-AFRICAN EDUCATION

Recently, modern democratic governments have been facing religious and other minorities demanding state funding of separate schools. A syste m of completely equal treatment of both state and denominational schoo ls has existed in the Netherlands since 1920 and is firmly rooted in t he Dutch history of the previous centuries. It may be of interest to k now how this pluralistic system of 'pillars'-as it has been called in Dutch historiography-came into being and how it has functioned ever si nce, even until the present day, when 'pillarization' is still a promi nent feature of the Dutch educational domain, despite strong secularis ing and post-modern tendencies. This paper describes the historical ro ots of the Dutch pillarized educational system, i.e. of this remarkabl e subcultural historical roots of the Dutch pillarized educational sys tem, i.e. of this remarkable subcultural segmentation of education-and of society in general-on the basis of different religious or philosop hical views. In the process of pillarization a crucial part was played by Dutch Protestants. With South Africa being heavily influenced by t hese Protestants and South African educational history running partly parallel to Dutch educational history during the 19th century, it seem s worthwhile to examine why pillarisation did not occur in the souther n hemisphere. In order to understand the process of pillarization it i s necessary to look well into the history of the Netherlands since the 17th century. Relevant similarities between the South African and the Dutch developments up to 1900 are presented as well. At the time when the Dutch system of educational 'pillars'-or 'voluntary apartheid' as it has recently been called-fully developed towards the end of the 19 th century, South African educational history, however, took a complet ely different course towards compulsory racial apartheid. The present revolutionary changes in South Africa, however, seem to entail some ne w interesting parallels between the educational situations in both cou ntries. To substantiate this, the paper highlights some relevant featu res of 20th century South African educational developments, before ana lysing the present Dutch situation and giving the reasons for the perm anent strength of the pillars. Not only are the old pillars still stan ding firmly, but new minorities of immigrants have also discovered the uses of the system of pillarization for identity-building and cultura l emancipation. To conclude, the paper addresses the question of wheth er pillarization in education can and should be adopted outside the Ne therlands.