View - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

The Director and Project Facilitator explained how their work included a historical dimension.
The Director made a case for understanding the past in a global context:
One of the problems historically is that we tend to see the global thing as if it is
somewhere else ... not because it is part of what we are, and that is a historical attitude
and problem. We are back to Empire and superiority … and being an island.
The Project Facilitator related this to pupil needs:
If you want to equip young people to be active participants in the world that we are
living in today then one of the ways that you do that is that you need to give them an
understanding of what has happened in the past, to learn from that in order to think
about changes needed [now]. So … we would argue and underline the global … you
might be looking at Birmingham’s history but it is in terms of how Birmingham is
connected to the wider world - so global isn’t always looking at somewhere else,
global can be about looking at your own place.
These comments provide a useful starting point for understanding how TIDE came to include
an Irish dimension within their exploration of global issues. The Director explained that their
interest in Ireland grew out of work related to Ethiopia in the 1980s:
What we recognised was that when we were talking about our personal histories here
and Ireland … there was a commonality … and not least the whole idea of stereotypes;
the idea that how we saw Ethiopia depended on how you saw Ethiopians and if you
saw them as being useless and helpless this was racist and didn’t help you to
understand their situation, but that was also true [of stereotypes] between England and
Ireland and we began to explore that.
The Irish Famine/Hunger was regarded as the most obvious comparison with issues in
Ethiopia, although the specific nature of each event was appreciated:
… you could draw on case studies that were from different disciplines historically and
contemporary and recognise that there were things to learn about famines in Africa
now based on the Famine in Ireland. It wasn’t the same but these were the things we
were thinking.
When considering the current situation in Ireland the Director felt that it was often glossed
over in England as if it was not part of the conflict. They compared the way in which people
saw images of famine in Africa and argued that it was important to encourage children to
discuss the background to these issues.