Political engagement at a young age is crucial, as it determines to what extent young people later actively participate in society and democratic processes. The study measured trust in government institutions, interest in social issues, voting intentions, and political knowledge.

'We explicitly looked at differences between schools and at whether it matters if students are in the same school community, and whether it makes a difference when students from different socioeconomic backgrounds are in the same classroom,' explains Herman van de Werfhorst, professor of sociology and one of the lead researchers.

More knowledge, but persistent differences

All students gradually become better informed about politics and are more likely to express an intention to vote once eligible. Interestingly, students who initially showed little political interest displayed the strongest growth, suggesting some degree of convergence.

At the same time, differences between students in different educational tracks prove stubborn, and these differences are already visible in the first year of secondary school. Pre-university students consistently score higher across all domains. Students who move up to a 'higher' track (for example, from general secondary education to pre-university education) show a clear increase in political knowledge, whereas 'moving down' a track actually results in a loss of political knowledge.

School context cannot explain these differences

'Because these differences already exist in the first school year, they cannot simply be explained by the socioeconomic composition of the school,' says Van de Werfhorst. At schools with a more socioeconomically mixed student body, the differences between pre-university and vocational students were in fact larger rather than smaller.

At schools where different tracks come together -for instance, in broad first-year classes -the differences are somewhat smaller. Yet even there, the persistent gaps remain concerning, the researchers note.

'Broad first-year classes are often seen politically, for example in Amsterdam, as a solution to the gap in democratic engagement. But in practice, they hardly seem to reduce those differences,' Van de Werfhorst says. 'Perhaps that is because students’ backgrounds differ, or because of upbringing, or it may relate to intelligence. We cannot properly test that.'

Political trust declines

Most strikingly, political trust among vocational students actually declines during secondary school, while it increases among pre-university students. 'Political trust influences your involvement in society and in democratic processes,' Van de Werfhorst stresses. 'That is precisely where you don’t want to see differences. And a good school system should promote equality. But here the gap is actually widening.'

According to the researchers, the central issue of equality lies in the selection of which students go to which school. 'Education scholars have been saying this for years: the early selection of students in the Dutch school system has a major impact on all kinds of inequalities,' says Van de Werfhorst. 

Citizenship education in schools

The findings, the researchers argue, also call for a critical evaluation of the Dutch law on citizenship education, which requires schools to devote attention to democratic values and participation. 'It is very important to examine whether that law has had any effect. We studied one large group of students who went through secondary school at the same time. That gave us a lot of comparative material, but ideally, you would also compare groups of students who attended secondary school in different periods,' says Van de Werfhorst.

Article details

Herman van de Werfhorst, Geert ten Dam, Sara Geven, Twan Huijsmans, Hester Mennes, Laura Mulder, Jaap van Slageren, and Tom van der Meer, 2025, ‘Track Differences in Civic and Democratic Engagement During Secondary Education: A New Panel Study From the Netherlands.’ The British Journal of Sociology. doi:10.1111/1468-4446.70006.