Religion, denomination, and education in the Netherlands: Cognitive and noncognitive outcomes after an era of secularization

After 1850, The Netherlands developed into a strongly pillarized or denomin ational society. Starting in 1965, however, a process of secularization and depillarization emerged and the influence of the institutionalized denomin ations declined greatly. Today, there are indications that the process of s ecularization has reached its peak. Remarkably enough, such secularization and depillarization haj had little influence oil the educational system in The Netherlands. In this article, the relations between the religious affil iations of parents, the denominations of the schools attended by their chil dren, and both the cognitive and noncognitive educational achievement of th eir children are examined. A representative sample of nearly 8,400 kinderga rten students from 432 elementary schools is studied. The results show that the denomination of the school does not appear to affect educational resul ts. Effects of the religious affiliation of the parents on the cognitive ac hievement but not the self-confidence or well-being of their children were found, When the socioethnic background of the students was taken into consi deration, however, the observed effects disappeared.