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CHAPTER 6 PROJECT CASE STUDY 2: PERCEPTIONS OF EDUCATORS INVOLVED WITH THE IRELAND IN SCHOOLS PROJECT The ‘Ireland in Schools’ project is a voluntary organisation that has been supported by private donations rather than government grants. The original programme was started in September 1989 at the Institute of Irish Studies in Liverpool and was closely linked with the Warrington Project in 1993. However, since March 2000 the organisation has been totally independent and the chairperson has worked directly with teachers, advisers and teacher educators. The organisation’s website indicates that it wants to make an Irish dimension part of the mainstream curriculum: Aim The aim of IiS is to make Ireland a part of the normal curriculum in Britain, from primary schools to sixth forms, by making it easy for teachers to draw upon Ireland in their teaching. Inspiration The original inspiration was to underpin the peace process in Ireland by fostering better understanding of Ireland in Britain through young people. Educational life of its own However, the programme has taken on an educational life of its own by • addressing key curriculum issues • enriching the teaching and learning experience for teachers and pupils alike and • making learning fun as well as challenging. (http://www.iiisresource.org) The site indicates how Ireland in Schools has shifted from having a specific political focus on facilitating the peace process in Ireland towards relating this to wider issues. The following statement indicates how this was linked to diversity issues as well as more broadly based changes in the school curriculum:
• Contributes towards the teaching of citizenship, mutual understanding, ethnic and cultural diversity and British history by helping to extend the curriculum beyond the Anglo-centric focus of most published resources. • Promotes current developments in the curriculum including the primary and secondary National Strategies and the needs of the child. • Enhances potential by developing thinking skills, links with English, including historical fiction, and a range of creative approaches from drama to dance. This suggests that despite its independence the organisation seeks to work within the initiatives set by government as a means of integrating an Irish dimension into the school curriculum. Ireland in Schools supports both primary and secondary schools by producing curriculum materials such as booklets, CD ROMS and, more recently, through its website. The chairperson, an academic historian and former Director of Irish Studies at Liverpool University, is the driving force behind the organisation’s work. Given their role they could be easily identified and permission was given to name them that dealt with ethical issues highlighted within the BERA (2004) guidelines. However, this is an issue which appears in several chapters, and in order to provide at least partial privacy to interviewees and also to focus on their perceptions rather than their identities it has been decided to avoid naming interviewees. Although the work produced by the interviewees is available on the Ireland in Schools website it will not be cited directly within this research. The only exceptions will be two interviewees who independently made reference to their work in the public domain through their publications. This chapter will investigate the Ireland in Schools project’s work by examining the perceptions of its chairperson together with mini case studies of clusters of teachers and curriculum advisers who have supported its work. It is appropriate to state that the researcher has known the chairperson since 1998 and developed materials for Ireland in Schools. This
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PERCEPTIONS OF AN IRISH DIMENSION A
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ABSTRACT This thesis asserts that a
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CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES LIST OF ABB
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CHAPTER 7 206 Movers’ and shakers
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CIDE DEC DfES
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and global history and that this in
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experiences of Huguenot refugees in
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intention for the current research
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a series of ‘fuzzy generalisation
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CHAPTER 1 AN IRISH DIMENSION WITHIN
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never again to be regarded as the p
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claimed that the experiences of the
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The report made some reference to d
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Irish dimension has featured in thi
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together. The relationship between
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Although, the third volume certainl
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esonance. Secondly, within the peri
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Before exploring links between an I
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Historical Association and former H
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narrative histories based on the ex
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This did not make explicit referenc
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ead’. Anti-racism was concerned w
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working party’s recommendations h
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and alienated by a diet of history
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history for equality and diversity
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CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY: APPROACHES U
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investigated Art teachers’ percep
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… a group of children in a class
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esearch participants must be honour
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Case Study I: Pilot study of 25 Sec
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276 primary schools, 197 are LEA sc
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comparing the primary and secondary
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Development Education or the Irelan
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esponse. A common format for the pr
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eferences to their life histories.
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Research into action The issues and
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organiser and I discussed the prosp
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schools replied. Only 6 telephone r
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who volunteered were interviewed. T
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without evident inhibitions. A more
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Ireland in Schools (a) Secondary Te
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CHAPTER 3 THE IRISH DIMENSION WITHI
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one said that they served the Irish
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What does a comparison between the
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Can perceptions of an Irish dimensi
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Number of respondents 25 38 52 115
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out of 38 responses and in Case Stu
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The teaching of an Irish dimension
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The last question provided responde
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obtained from at least one school i
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felt that Irish history and immigra
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RC responses 0 17 4 1 22 LEA respon
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Table 9: An examination of the rela
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y some secondary respondents. A num
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secondary schools there are respond
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and Primary Historical Association
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1 Some Low No - less 2 Some Low/som
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Birmingham had an Irish community.
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concentrate on … literacy and num
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more traditional topics which could
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The fifth interviewee had been Head
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Page 129 and 130: The interviewee said that at a rece
Page 131 and 132: decision to focus on teaching Irish
Page 133 and 134: The interviewee taught Ireland as t
Page 135 and 136: Examples of topics where an Irish d
Page 137 and 138: emphasised pragmatic motives for de
Page 139 and 140: Two interviewees indicated that the
Page 141 and 142: It is possible that the interviewee
Page 143 and 144: commented, ‘We obviously do Engli
Page 145 and 146: What did this interviewee have to s
Page 147 and 148: When asked about other aspects of t
Page 149 and 150: dimension and multicultural and ant
Page 151 and 152: the other case studies did not repl
Page 153 and 154: The Project Facilitator was intervi
Page 155 and 156: The Director worked closely with co
Page 157 and 158: In practical terms 80:20 is about w
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Page 161 and 162: of pictures related to current deve
Page 163 and 164: elated to an Irish dimension, the P
Page 165 and 166: We didn’t feel that they needed t
Page 167 and 168: The fact that the interviewee did n
Page 169 and 170: We can draw out influences of the w
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Page 173: curriculum. The analysis of the thr
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Page 179 and 180: article concluded by noting that hi
Page 181 and 182: elated to a multicultural or anti-r
Page 183 and 184: The interviewee also felt that thei
Page 185 and 186: Beyond individual schools they felt
Page 187 and 188: Clearly, the co-ordinator’s inter
Page 189 and 190: Stage 4. They also considered that
Page 191 and 192: For example they had already used m
Page 193 and 194: The interviewee developed materials
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Page 199 and 200: een delayed by personal or school d
Page 201 and 202: The interviewee indicated more abou
Page 203 and 204: Work related to Black History at Ke
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Page 207 and 208: within British history. It is inter
Page 209 and 210: through a workshop. They provided t
Page 211 and 212: The second teacher was interviewed
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egin to do that. That’s the key,
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interviewee had also contributed to
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argue with that really because ther
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People have come and gone through E
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leader for the GCSE History pilot.
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Towards the end of the interview th
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in their cluster group still had di
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months before the time of the inter
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the interests of particular mentors
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… the further that you get from t
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Clearly, the issues of the relation
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‘schools quite often find that th
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examination results and league tabl
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in Britain’s multicultural societ
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priorities. For some interviewees i
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Curriculum 2000 and primary intervi
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implications for both pupils’ und
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focus for looking at events such as
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Different interpretations and versi
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… if comparing the IRA to al-Qaid
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teach about Ireland at Key Stage 3
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current study. An exploration of th
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APPENDICES Appendix I: Appendix II:
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. Why do you teach it? Rate each of
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APPENDIX II: Secondary Head of Hist
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Question 2. How important is multic
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Question 4. How important is immigr
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8. DO YOU TEACH IRISH HISTORY/OR IR
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12. History textbooks at KS4 Please
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APPENDIX III: Primary History Co-or
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5. Tick the comment which shows the
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7. HISTORY TEXTBOOKS AT KS2 Please
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I really appreciate you help in com
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APPENDIX V: Perceptions of historic
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APPENDIX VII: Perceptions of histor
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APPENDIX IX: Perceptions of histori
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APPENDIX XI: Perceptions of histori
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Bookseller (2003 b) The Bookseller,
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Charlesworth, S. (2000) A Phenomeno
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Gain, C.and George, R. (1999) Gende
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Jenkins, K. (1991) Re-thinking the
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Morrison, V. (1989) ‘Coney Island
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Riverdance - A Journey (1996) Produ
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Weight R. (2002) Patriots: National
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