Globalisation, socio-political shifts and increasing diversification of religious beliefs and practices present challenges for schools around the world. This is a time of transition and school communities face challenges between traditional and new ways of understanding. Teachers are at the interface of this change, including how their personal identities fit within professional environments. This paper presents an investigation into nonreligious teachers' experiences in traditionally religious schools in the Republic of Ireland (RoI) and Northern Ireland. In the RoI and, until recently, in Northern Ireland (NI) schools with a religious ethos were exempt from employment equality legislation in relation to religion (NI Fair Employment and Treatment Order 1998; Irish Employment Equality Act 1998-2011 Section 37 (1)). Historically this has been justified on religious grounds and the right of religious schools to appoint teachers who share their beliefs. Over time, populations on both sides of the border have become more religiously diverse and there has been a significant rise in the number of people with no religious belief. Some schools have responded to this increasing plurality by changing how they describe their stated ethos, this has resulted in further uncertainty around what counts as a religious school and raises questions regarding the applicability of exemptions from equality legislation for all schools on the island. Furthermore, the continued use of exemptions from equality legislation in RoI would appear to be overly generous in comparison to other European states. The research question, therefore, was as follows:

To what extent is religion or belief a factor in the appointment or promotion of non-religious teachers in Post-Primary schools with a religious ethos on the island of Ireland?

The epistemology underpinning this research is social constructivism. Theories of identity and teacher agency, particularly ecological agency (Priestly et al. 2015), underpin the analysis of the findings.

The research methodology was qualitative and the researchers undertook semi-structured interviews with fifteen non-religious post-primary teachers. Thematic analysis supported by NVivo 10 computer software was used to analyse the data.

The key findings are that religion or belief was a factor in the appointments of all the teachers to varying degrees. In schools managed by Catholic authorities, candidates’ beliefs were explicitly taken into consideration. While in other schools, that hold religious values, implicit religious influences were at play in teacher appointments. It was also found that temporary contracts and probation periods meant teachers were subjected to a protracted assessment of their suitability for posts, including their ‘fit’ with a school's religious ethos. The majority of the participants felt a need to suppress their non-religious identity and conform to the schools’ religious culture, causing identity dissonance and personal ethical conflicts.

To answer the research questions the researchers chose to gather qualitative data from a sample of teachers in both jurisdictions. As explored in the literature review, those Post-Primary teachers who are non-religious may lack formal protections against discrimination in employment on the basis of their beliefs. The researchers recruited Post-Primary teachers who self-identified as non-religious and had experience working in a school with a religious ethos. Initially, a number of established humanist organisations and social network groups were contacted. However, it proved challenging to find participants and the researchers asked the organisations to re-advertise. Furthermore, the communications office at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick was also asked to advertise the research project on their platforms. Snowball sampling was utilised, whereby participants were asked at their interview if they had colleagues who may be interested in participating in the research. This enabled a wider reach to participants who were not members of non-religious groups or social media followers. Where applicable, permission was sought from the organisation and/or network gatekeeper to share an invitation to become involved in the research. The research was advertised between June and August 2020. The criteria for selection shared in the invitation were: a non-religious worldview and experience of teaching in a Post-Primary school on the island of Ireland which had a religious ethos. In total, 15 participants were interviewed five from NI and ten from RoI. When interviewed, 14 were currently teaching and one had left the teaching profession. Due to the restrictions of the Covid 19 pandemic, video-call software was used to facilitate the interviews. The project received ethical approval from the SSESW Ethics Committee of Queen’s University Belfast.

Religion or belief is a factor in the appointments of teachers. Similar to other studies of teachers in NI (Milliken et al. 2019), our data showed that application forms and interview processes are used by many schools to elicit the religious or non-religious identity of teachers and their level of commitment to the religious ethos of the school. We can see from our sample that the freedom to make judgments on applicants by religion is exercised explicitly by Catholic schools. Further, implicit processes are at play across other school types which remain religiously influenced, on both parts of the island. Moreover, temporary contracts and probation periods combined with a ‘chill factor’ mean teachers are subjected to a protracted assessment of their suitability. In considering our findings alongside European directives focusing on proportionality and genuine occupational requirement (European Council 2000), the European Convention guidance on religious freedom (article 9) (ECHR 2021) in tandem with the United Nations Human Rights comment 22 (UNHRC 1993) on mutual respect, we found that non-religious teachers without legislated protection from discrimination can be disadvantaged in employment in a range of school types and if they achieve employment can experience isolation, identity dissonance and restricted agency. Using an ecological view of agency as part of the analytical frame, helped to highlight how teachers, as individuals cannot easily address discriminatory environments and practices at a structural level. Interestingly, our findings also show that schools with strong religious cultures are not exclusively denominational schools. For this reason, a system-wide review of employment practices is needed, especially if nonreligious teachers are to experience equality and inclusivity as part of their professional environment.

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