Abstract

Many views on democratic political culture presuppose the presence of competent citizens in the political system. Schools have the duty to educate children into responsible citizens. Teachers play a key-role in this process. Teachers’ attitudes have a distinct impact on the political attitudes of their pupils. Therefore, it is important to know if teachers are favorable to democracy. This article focuses on the evolution in authoritarianism of teachers in Flanders. To this end we use a Belgian sample of 400 primary and secondary school teachers from 1953, as well as a Flemish sample of 486 secondary school teachers from 2002. First we describe the evolution in teachers’ attitudes. Further on, we look at components of authoritarianism. Teachers seem to have evolved strongly on a political subdimension. The differences are smaller on the ‘educational’ sub-dimension.

How to Cite:

Kavadias, D. & Siongers, J., (2009) “Van autoritaire schoolmeesters tot democratische leraren: de evolutie van autoritarisme bij Vlaamse leerkrachten over een halve eeuw beschouwd (1953-2002)”, Tijdschrift voor Sociologie 30(1), 55–83. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/sociologos.86724