Traditional and non-traditional educational outcomes: Trade-off or complementarity?

Recently, schools have increasingly been charged with enhancing non-traditional academic competencies, in addition to traditional academic competencies. This article raises the question whether schools can implement these new educational goals in their curricula and simultaneously realise the traditional ones or whether a trade-off between educational goals occurs in schools. It is argued that this question centres on the issue of whether the development of traditional and non-traditional competencies is complementary or competitive. By reviewing the literature and by conducting multivariate multilevel analysis on data gathered in 26 secondary schools in The Netherlands, the article addresses the probability of occurrence of school trade-off between educational outcomes. Results of our analyses do not unambiguously support the occurrence of trade-off, nor the proposition that traditional and non-traditional competencies are complementary. It is concluded that both trade-off and complementarity may occur, depending on specific school conditions.