Session Information
Contribution
Description: Traditionally, the education system in Northern Ireland has largely been divided along bi-cultural lines with individual schools being mainly mono-cultural (Catholic, and Non-Catholic de facto Protestant schools), (Hagan, 2003). The recent census figures (Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, [NISRA] 2003) however, indicate a changing population with increasing numbers from different religious, cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
Since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (1998), a period of change and development has been instituted across a range of dimensions in Northern Ireland. Throughout the 1990s the Department of Education for Northern Ireland [DENI] has developed a policy agenda which emphasises the role of educators in contributing to the creation of a more plural and tolerant society. The publication of a number of key policy documents (Department of Education for Northern Ireland 1999a, b; Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment 2002a, b) has driven this momentum for change. These documents reflect similar perspectives on educational policy across the European Union and internationally (Barber 2001).
Following on from a study by Hagan and McGlynn (2004), this paper considers the impact of increasing multiculturalism in Northern Ireland and examines how schools and teachers are accommodating and addressing the needs of the changing populations of their classrooms. The findings point to the complex challenges facing teachers and the need for development in teacher education to accommodate increasing diversity.
Methodology: A fifteen item questionnaire was distributed to a random sample of students in study years 1-4 (n200) on a Bachelor of Education (Hons.) programme at one of the two main teacher education colleges in Northern Ireland following completion of their teaching practice in schools in 2005. The students had been placed in primary and post-primary schools throughout Northern Ireland. The email was distributed and returned via internal college email.
The questionnaire items addressed the socio-economic profile of the school, the number of pupils from different cultural or ethnic backgrounds and the extent to which the school accommodated and/or celebrated cultural or ethnic diversity either at the classroom or whole school level. There was a questionnaire response rate of 46.5 per cent (n93).
After descriptive analysis of the questionnaire returns using SPSS package, follow-up, exploratory interviews were conducted with students (n6) who had particular experience of ethnic diversity, or who were placed in schools in which diversity was celebrated and/or accommodated to a significant extent.
Conclusions: The paper provides an analytical account of the research findings and addresses the extent to which students encountered diversity in their placement schools and their experience of how that diversity was addressed.
Findings indicate that although still limited, there are increasing numbers of children coming from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds in schools across Northern Ireland. The study shows that in large part, schools seem to be adopting an assimilationist, as opposed to a truly critical multicultural approach to celebrating and utilising diversity which can lead to intercultural learning (McGlynn, 2003).
In line with the findings of Le Roux (2002); Stoer and Cortesao (2000); and Hermans (2002), the paper proposes that there are significant implications in its findings to suggest that there is increased need for both initial and in-service preparation and training of teachers to effectively address the issue of increasing multiculturalism in schools in Northern Ireland.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.