Mulder's study, part of her dissertation Mind the Gap! Inequalities in Democratic Support among Adolescents, sheds new light on previous findings from international research. Namely that younger generations are less democratically minded than older generations. The Dutch figures show a more nuanced picture. Dutch adolescents support democracy, but their political attitudes and degree of democratic involvement appear to depend strongly on their type of education and social background.

Unequal amounts of democratic support

In her research, Mulder looked at the views of 12- to 18-year-olds. Young people see democracy as the best form of government and largely reject alternatives such as autocracy and theocracy. Among twelve-year-olds, there is slightly more support for technocratic forms of government, in which experts make decisions instead of politicians. Democratic core values ​​such as freedom of expression and equal rights are also very important to young Dutch people.

However, there appears to be a large gap between young people from different types of education. Pupils in pre-university education (vwo) are more likely to indicate that they see democracy as the best system than their peers in pre-vocational secondary education (vmbo). This difference is already visible at the beginning of secondary school and remains largely stable as the young people grow older.

In addition, there is also a difference between boys and girls. On average, girls support democracy more than boys, despite a lower interest in politics. Interestingly, this gender gap has no effect on voting behaviour: both boys and girls say they plan to vote as soon as they reach voting age.

Social background plays a role

According to Mulder, the sources of inequalities in democratic support already exist before secondary school. The fact that the educational gap in democratic support is already visible when young people have only just been assigned to vmbo, havo or vwo means that it cannot be caused by the types of education themselves. ‘The social background of young people plays an important role,’ Mulder concludes. ‘Young people with a higher socio-economic background, and who learn more about politics at home, support democracy more and are more likely to attend pre-university education. Social background therefore not only influences unequal educational opportunities, but also unequal citizenship outcomes.’

Education matters

But that does not mean that education does not matter. Mulder also conducted research into citizenship programmes that aim to familiarise young people with politics and democracy. ‘Just the one-day citizenship programme from ProDemos, for example, in which pupils visit the House of Representatives, is able to permanently increase political knowledge,' says Mulder. ‘That could be seen as hopeful for the broader and longer-term citizenship education that is provided in schools.'

‘However, you have to be careful that citizenship education does not further increase the existing inequalities,' Mulder warns. ‘Pupils in pre-university education already know more about politics than those in pre-vocational secondary education at the start of the ProDemos programme, and they also learn more during the day. That is a classic example of the Matthew effect: those who already know more, also learn more.'

How can politics help?

Based on her research results, Mulder advocates a number of changes to the Dutch education system to reduce the inequalities in democratic support. One clear step towards closing the gap in democratic support is to strengthen citizenship education, particularly in pre-vocational secondary education. ‘Citizenship education is particularly useful for pupils who have fewer opportunities at home to develop democratic involvement. Unfortunately, they often receive less of it, and also a different type of citizenship education than pupils who already have many opportunities at home.’ Mulder therefore advocates a stronger focus on citizenship education in pre-vocational secondary education and intermediate vocational education (mbo).

Another of Mulder’s recommendations is increasing the age at which pupils are assigned an education level. ‘Education systems where this happens at a young age, such as in the Netherlands (12 years), are characterised by greater differences based on social background. In countries where this only happens at the age of 16, the inequalities are smaller.’

In addition, the voting age could be lowered. ‘If young people vote for the first time as soon as they are allowed, they appear to vote more often later in life because they develop a kind of voting habit. If the voting age is lowered, students are still within the reach of the school and the school can pay attention to the elections.’

Mulder emphasises that inequalities in democratic support are more worrying than the level of that support. ‘If certain groups are structurally less involved in democracy, their interests will be less well represented, and democracy will ultimately work less well for them. If we want democracy to really work for everyone, we must ensure that all young people have the same opportunities to develop themselves politically.’

Laura succesfully defended her thesis on 20 March 2025 at the University of Amsterdam.