The period since the end of the conflict has seen an exponential rise in inward migration to Northern Ireland. The challenges faced by children and families who migrate to any region in the UK are likely to be similar. Still, some distinctive features of the educational context in Northern Ireland may also impact settlement, integration, and ‘equality of condition’. These can be described in two-fold terms as the existence of a divided system of education that continues to educate approximately 92% of pupils in ‘separate’ Catholic (Church maintained) and de facto Protestant schools; and a system of academic selection that filters children into grammar and non-selective post-primary schools largely based on their performance in written tests at age 10 or 11.

While some previous research has explored the experiences of families as they engage with the complexities of the education system in Northern Ireland, none has focused exclusively on minority ethnic and migrant communities. This presentation draws on data from a large-scale qualitative study that sought to address this deficit.

It employs Lynch and Baker’s (2005) equality of condition framework as a conceptual device for understanding how some of the stratifying dimensions of education in Northern Ireland, together with broader neo-liberal characteristics of schooling in this post-conflict society, may differentially impact pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds.

Theoretical framework

 Lynch and Baker (2005) highlight four equality of condition problems in education:

1. Equality in educational and related resources

This dimension relates to the relationship between education and the economy in capitalist societies, which is distinctive in two ways. First, access to and full participation in education is correlated with having sufficient economic resources to maximise the opportunity education presents. Second, schools as institutions of selection and stratification serve the labour market, therein mediating life chances for pupils

2. Equality of respect and recognition in education

Inequalities of respect and recognition relate to patterns of interpretation, definition, representation, and communication that are associated with the differential status accorded to groups based on characteristics such as gender, age, ethnicity, language, religious belief, or disability. In education, responses towards such groups are often expressed in degrees of inclusion, and cultural recognition, with the more marginalised groups treated as irrelevant or inferior.

3. Equality of power

Inequalities of power occur in the locus of educational authority and educational decision-making. This manifests in many forms, including exclusion, trivialisation, and misrepresentation of individuals or groups. Relating to the processes noted above, power inequalities exist in aspects of the curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment that are culturally biased, and in processes of selection that classify and stratify pupils in a hierarchically ordered fashion.

4. Equality of love, care and solidarity

This dimension is based on the premise that emotions are central to teaching and learning and failure to recognise this denies the educational needs of pupils and teachers as emotional beings. The neo-liberalisation of education, which valorises grades and league tables over the process of learning, is seen to marginalise interest in emotions, distracting attention from how learning can be seriously impaired because students lack support or because of negative emotional responses to subjects or curriculum content.

Defining equality of condition as the belief that ‘everyone has roughly equal prospects for a good life’ , Lynch and Baker argue for the importance of equalising ‘real options’ in education to enable and empower all participants, irrespective of identity group characteristics. Taking account of their framework, our research aims to explore if, and in what ways, the distinctive features of the education system in Northern Ireland may impact the equality of condition experience of pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds.

In total, 62 children aged 9-15 (30 female and 32 male) participated in the study. For sampling purposes, the children were the primary referent for families, and the ethnic diversity in the sample broadly reflected that in the wider pupil population (DE, 2023a). Participants were drawn from 9 of the 11 council areas in Northern Ireland, ensuring a good geographical spread of experience. In most cases, one child and one parent from each family participated in the study; Parents were interviewed separately from their children, to allow them to speak freely on sensitive issues relating to their children’s education. Interview topics included experiences in securing school placement, educational aspirations, home/school communication, primary to post-primary transfer, and the day-to-day experience of education in Northern Ireland. Children were given the option of being interviewed with or without their parent present; where they preferred to be interviewed separately, two researchers were present for safeguarding reasons. Children’s interviews were centred around the completion of a creative task, with participants invited to depict ‘things I like about school’ and ‘things I would like to change about school’ using a range of stationery and craft materials provided by the research team. Their creations then served as the stimulus for conversation with the researchers. In addition to interviews with children and families, five focus groups were conducted with representatives voluntary and community sector organisations that work with minority ethnic communities (n=20), as well as semi-structured interviews with educational stakeholders, including educators, education officials, civil servants, employees of school sectoral bodies, and elected representatives (n=23).

Chiming with Lynch and Baker’s framework, interviews reveal several ways in which equality of condition variables may impact the educational experience of minority ethnic groups in Northern Ireland, potentially disadvantaging them relative to others from the settled majority White British/Irish/Northern Irish group. Within this, several factors emerged as significant, including recent migrant or refugee status versus settled status, support available to minority ethnic families, schools’ admissions criteria and academic selection, racialised and ‘parochial’ modus operandi in education, and educational and economic capital possessed by families and groups. It is clear, for example, that policies and procedures such as post-primary newcomer placement policy, and high stakes grammar school entry tests that are only available in Irish and English, create an equality of condition deficit for some minority ethnic children, causing considerable distress to them and their families. However, it was also observed that some families possess an educational capital that has helped them strategically navigate the Northern Ireland system to secure the best educational outcomes – even against such hurdles. There is also evidence that equality of condition relating to academic selection is experienced differently by different ethnic groups, and according to whether families are first generation or second/third generation migrants, with the latter in particular possessing more social capital from wider networks and connections, including with the settled white British/Irish/Northern Irish majority group, to maximise benefit. Even where such benefits accrue, our findings suggest that pervasive racism in a myriad of forms and often unintentional impacts the educational experiences of pupils from minority backgrounds.

Loader, R., Jiménez, E., Hughes, J. and O’Boyle, A. (under review) The educational response to ethnic diversity in transitional Northern Ireland: A critical review of policy and research. Under review with Irish Educational Studies. Lynch, K., and Baker, J. 2005. Equality in education: An equality of condition perspective. Theory and Research in Education, 3(2), 131-164. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878505053298