Showing papers in "Irish Educational Studies in 2009"

Strategic planning and accountability in Irish education

Abstract: This article considers the impact of the New Public Management culture on Irish education and calls for a debate in relation to the prevailing bureaucratic model of accountability. The influence of the Lisbon Agenda (2000) on education planning is identified and the 2005/7 Education Strategy Statement is analysed using the relevant OECD framework. This analysis reveals the preponderance of macro policy objectives over individual learning objectives. The implications of this finding are considered in the case of two of the five goals of this Strategy Statement, those dealing with the personal and social goals of education and education quality. The paper calls for alternative indicators that will achieve balance between process and product, between responsive and contractual accountability and between individual and system outcomes. Some hopeful developments are identified.

Key elements in a positive practicum: insights from Australian post-primary pre-service teachers

Abstract: This paper investigates key elements in a positive practicum, from the perspective of post-primary pre-service teachers in Victoria, Australia. Four key issues emerged: the emotional and professional support given by the supervising teacher, the freedom for pre-service teachers to develop their own teaching style, the provision of specific and constructive feedback, and the approach to assessment. These findings offer possible lessons for the Republic of Ireland context, where pre-service teachers are normally supervised by university faculty. The paper aims to stimulate debate on the practicum, and in particular on the roles of the school-based teacher and the university representative.

Body knowledge and curriculum: Pedagogies of touch in youth and visual culture

Abstract: This book is a valuable contribution to contemporary research for courses in curriculum theory, art education, qualitative research methodologies, visual culture and pedagogies, and feminist theory, providing an interdisciplinary investigation into body research. It is also a valuable text for professional artists, researchers and educators. Body knowledge and curriculum folds and unfolds questions about body knowledge, curriculum and pedagogy, and artistic forms of creating and enacting research. This book examines student understandings of the complex territory of body knowledge in the context of creating and interrogating visual art and culture. It illustrates a six-month research study conducted by the book’s author, Stephanie Springgay, in an alternative secondary school in Vancouver, in Canada. During the research project, students created a number of visual art works using a diversity of material explorations as a means to think through the body as a process of exchange and as a bodied encounter. Springgay positioned herself in the school as an artist, researcher and teacher (A/r/tographer) and designed and implemented a body curriculum for 13 students and their art teacher, in a senior art class. She participated full-time in all school activities for a period of six months. Students were involved in group discussions, written exercises, kept visual journals, investigated and created artworks on three bodied curriculum themes of body surfaces, body encounters and body sites. The first theme introduced students to interventions by contemporary artist, Diane Borsato. The second theme explored globalisation, communication and consumption, and the third was concerned with the body’s relationship to space. Three consecutive chapters are dedicated to detailed description and analysis of the themes as they unfolded and a fourth examines relational aesthetics, through the study of a mail art project. Emphasis was placed on performance, installation and new media art. Data was collated through a diverse range of methods, including observation on digital video and still images; written and visual annotations; recorded interviews, discussions; written and visual journals. In the final chapter, Springgay presents her analysis of the research. Springgay embraces the post-structuralist analysis that no single view is intended but rather multiple meanings are possible, and this is illustrated by exemplars of dialogue with students. The students worked as co-researchers and were involved at all stages. This methodology required Springgay to interweave three bodies of texts: the analysis of student artwork; text derived from student conversations and Springgay’s own artwork resulting from the ongoing research. By exploring the

Teachers' Negative Experiences and Expressions of Emotion: Being True to Yourself or Keeping You in Your Place?.

Abstract: This paper examines teachers’ experiences and displays of negative emotion as a means of partially exploring how identities at work might be formed and regulated. It uses the concepts of emotional labour and subjectivation to interrogate the negative emotions teachers may experience and/or express at work. It suggests that emotion display rules are developed and come to partially define the teacher self in tandem with overlapping, synthetically discussed discourses of the teacher as moral/caring agent, expert and purveyor of social control/social efficiency. The field of emotional labour is explored here using diary entries of teachers who were between their second and fifth year of teaching in Irish primary schools. Teachers’ experiences are read with less of a concern for the original ‘authenticity’ thesis of emotional labour in order to foreground an analysis of how certain truths about teachers’ emotions are legitimated and solidified in the labour cycle. It is argued that spaces for multiple teacher ...

"Dip, Dip, Sky Blue, Who's It? NOT YOU": Children's Experiences of Standardised Testing--A Socio-Cultural Analysis.

Abstract: The recent decision by the Department of Education and Science in the Republic of Ireland to introduce the mandatory testing of children in Irish primary schools provides the broad context for this paper. This decision has particular implications for schools designated as disadvantaged. The main focus of this study is on identifying the strategies used by these children in completing standardised tests. The sample comprises 51, mixed gender, 6th class children from contrasting ideal type socio–economic urban communities. The findings reveal a considerable level of difficulty on the part of some children in designated disadvantaged schools, with most aspects of the test format and much of the testing process. A number of socio-linguistic and socio-cultural factors are identified that affect children's attainment levels on these tests. Failure to take account of these issues will continue to present an overly crude picture of national attainment patterns and serve only to contribute to the stigmatisation an...

Back to the future: perspectives on current realities and future quality of educational research through the prism of Irish Educational Studies

Abstract: While ‘paradigm wars’ have raged internationally during the past decade in particular, the research community, qua community in the Irish context has been largely silent on these important issues. This paper provides a synthesis of key aspects of these international discourses against a brief historical backdrop of the field of educational research. Thereafter, this theoretical lens is used to interrogate the more than 200 papers published in Irish Educational Studies (IES) over a period of 10 years: 1996–2006. This analysis seeks to establish the relative health and quality of educational research in the Irish context, and in the third section of the paper, this analysis is the basis for discussion of lessons that may be learned from insights and understandings gained. The paper concludes that a more systematic and comprehensive review of educational research funding in the Irish context would be particularly apposite and timely, while also advocating the necessity for a comprehensive educational researc...

A career in teaching: decisions of the heart rather than the head

Abstract: There is a growing body of research and scholarship highlighting the importance of teachers and teaching to children's learning and life opportunities (Bransford, Darling-Hammond and LePage 2005). More specifically what teachers do in classrooms is a function of many things (e.g., content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge) including their belief about students, the subject, and the teaching process (Calderhead 1996). The focus of this research was to understand why young people in Ireland are attracted to teaching physical education and what factors contribute to their decision to enter a teacher education programme. A cohort of 75 physical education teacher candidates wrote brief narratives summarising key factors that influenced their decision to be teachers of physical education. Most of these students chose teaching as a career because of their interests in sport and physical education, love of working with children, and the a number of significant others telling them they would be good at teaching. Th...

"Frictional" Relationships ... Tension in the Camp: Focusing on the Relational in Under-Represented Students' Experiences in Higher Education.

Abstract: Drawing upon data collected as part of a research project exploring diversity in Irish higher education, this article focuses on the relational realm of under-represented students’ experiences. It commences with a brief overview of the background and context as well as the methodology of the study. The article then presents and explores a number of interrelated findings with regard to the relationships experienced by these undergraduates, both with other students and with their external friends and acquaintances. Friction was evident in the accounts of the respondents and this article argues that an increased focus on the relational is required by institutions, given the central role played by the social experience in the retention of students in higher education. Further, it is argued that education for diversity and inclusion be incorporated as an explicit and integrated component in all higher education curricula in order to foster mutual understanding and respect between student groups, within the bro...

‘The balancing act’ – Irish part-time undergraduate students in higher education

Abstract: While the numbers of part-time students has increased in higher education in Ireland, little is known about these students or about how they balance their study and other commitments. Drawing on a larger study on Irish students’ experiences in higher education, this article attempts to address this gap in research and reports on Irish part-time undergraduate students’ socio-demographic and institutional characteristics. It further explores the balance between part-time students’ academic study and their life situations. The article proposes some recommendations with regard to policy concerning part-time students, particularly in the area of financial support available to part-time learners. It also calls for expanding opportunities for participation in part-time study in the light of changing demography and provision of resources to facilitate students’ participation in higher education. Although the findings of this article broadly agree with those of international studies, more research is needed into t...

Connecting Policy Aspirations with Principled Progress? An Analysis of Current Physical Education Challenges in Scotland.

Abstract: Various recent politically driven policy interventions have outlined the increased importance of school physical education programmes as a contributor towards realising active lifelong learning targets. This paper explains the origins of the new policy emphasis and describes some of the opportunities which now exist for reviewing many curriculum orientation and fragmentation concerns. However, in reviewing the possibilities for policy aspirations to achieve transformative educational benefits, the paper also outlines how a commitment towards principled progress and educational realignment could founder on the rock of its own ambition unless various critical conceptual questions and associated pedagogical issues are thoroughly addressed. Following analysis of the barriers to progress that exist, the encouraging signs of a more coherent future are discussed. This occurs through analysing the progress of developmental-based programmes, which aim to improve the quality and authenticity of pupils’ learning exp...

A child's right to human dignity: reforming anti-bullying laws in the United States

Abstract: This article presents the findings of research into the bullying laws in the United States. Against the backdrop of international law, it addresses children's rights to protection from bullying in US schools. It includes recommendations for improving anti-bullying legislation based on state anti-bullying legislation in the United States, and provides a framework for further efforts to improve laws and school policies to better protect children in schools.

Institutional racism and anti-racism in teacher education: perspectives of teacher educators

Abstract: This paper focuses on the issue of institutional racism in the Irish education system. Drawing on insights from Critical Race Theory, the views of a sample of teacher educators in the Republic of Ireland were sought in relation to the existence of institutional racism in the Irish post-primary system and the extent to which anti-racism permeates teacher education programmes. Findings suggest the need for a form of deep engagement with anti-racism issues in the education of student teachers and the difficulties of doing so in the current structure of the Postgraduate Diploma in Education.

Schools and the law: a patron's introspection

Abstract: In Ireland, where education at both primary and second level is overwhelmingly denominational in character, patronage is exercised, in the main, by religious patrons. This article is an introspective analysis of current legal issues as they face one patron and schools under his patronage; it looks at the intersection of civil law with Church law; the burden of the law and access to it; the stewardship of patronage; the obligation of partnership; the constitution of boards of management; the difficulty of defining a school's characteristic spirit; the enduring aptness of denominational schools in a religious society; and the challenge of minorities in a new pluralist society. The rights of minorities balanced against the rights of those who desire education in schools of religious ethos challenge all to re-examine the contemporary educational infrastructure. At the end of the day the challenge is to determine the meaning of a good school and a good education and to attain that with the support, rather than...

Psychological assessment and dyslexia: parents’ perspectives

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to explore parents’ perceptions of the process of having their child assessed for dyslexia by an independent Educational Psychologist and the affective impact on the child or young person. The research was carried out as part of an evaluation of the services offered by the Northern Ireland Dyslexia Centre (NIDC). The methodology involved the use of a postal survey questionnaire with both qualitative and quantitative outcomes. Findings are discussed in the context of strategies for promoting partnerships with parents and affective-academic pathways for learners with dyslexia.

Religious freedom as a function of power relations: dubious claims on pluralism in the denominational schools debate

Abstract: The decline of religious observance in Irish society has coincided with the strengthening of the exclusionary prerogatives of state-funded denominational schools. The implementation of a ‘Catholics first’ policy in many schools, as underpinned by legislation, suggests that increasing religious diversity in the State has led to an abandonment of the historical acceptance that schools in receipt of public funding would not exclude non-coreligionists. It therefore casts doubt on the viability of individual religious freedom within the long-standing framework of the denominational education model. This stance, as well as the reaffirmed commitment of the Catholic Church to the unimpeded inculcation of religious doctrines in its schools, has been defended with reference to dubious normative invocations of pluralism and religious freedom. This article argues that the conception of pluralism invoked by those defending the denominational education model in its current form fails to command normative legitimacy due...

Religious Education and the Law in Northern Ireland's Controlled Schools.

Abstract: This article examines the legislation under which religious education operates in Northern Ireland's schools. A brief historical sketch identifies the Irish Churches’ interest in the educational debates of the 1920s and 1930s. The legislation that established religious education in the curriculum is traced from those debates to the present statutory core syllabus which requires denominational Christian teaching and the teaching of two other world faiths. This requirement is examined in light of earlier statutes which provided that religious education in controlled schools must be undenominational and based on the Holy Scriptures. Several legislative anomalies are identified and solutions proposed. Human rights and equality concerns raised by the core's largely Christian content and its production by Ireland's Christian Churches are discussed and set in a wider European context.

Secular, singular and self-expression? Religious freedom in Australian and New Zealand education

Abstract: Children today live in a multicultural society. Its ethnic, religious and cultural diversity is reflected in school communities. In Australia, education is provided largely within the secular public systems of each state and territory. In addition, there is a significant denominational, primarily Catholic, school sector. In New Zealand, the state system is similarly secular but with much fewer private denominational providers. An important mission of all educators is to assist and encourage young people to achieve their full potential to contribute to a society characterized by tolerance and understanding. Parents of different races, cultures and religions want their children to be educated in accordance with their convictions and religious beliefs. In addition, the partakers of education, the young people of today, are generally more confident and comfortable in expressing their beliefs, either through words or appearance. The challenge is for all involved in education, from government policy makers to e...

State liability for abuse in primary schools: systemic failure and O'Keeffe v. Hickey

Abstract: Due to the historical arrangement between Church and State, the Irish State has always discharged its duty to provide for free primary education exclusively through the provision of funding to privately owned and managed schools. Consequently, in O'Keeffe v. Hickey, where a woman sued the State in respect of sex abuse she suffered when in school, the Supreme Court held that on ordinary tort law principles of vicarious liability, primary school teachers are employed by the individual school and not by the State. Consequently, the State bears no liability for torts committed by teachers in the course of their employment. Moreover, the court expressed doubt as to whether such abuse could be considered to occur within the course of employment for the purposes of vicarious liability. This article examines this case from the perspective of the obligations of the State under the Irish Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. It argues that viewed globally, these obligations do not allow the Stat...

Maria Edgeworth: Nineteenth century Irish female pioneer of science education.

Abstract: Maria Edgeworth was a nineteenth century novelist, primarily remembered for her adult and children's novels Yet her book, Letters for literary ladies discussed the importance of science education

In the eye of a divorce storm: examining the modern challenge for Irish schools educating children of divorced and separated families

Abstract: The rising divorce rate in Irish society has consequences which are resonating beyond the family, and schools can find themselves caught in the eye of the storm, having to communicate with parents in conflict over the custody of their children. This article considers the obligations on schools in such a situation, in the context Irish family law, the education rights of parents and the ‘partnership’ approach now central in Irish education law and policy. It also explores the potential liability of schools with respect to the issue of parental child abduction.