Growing up Irish: Changing children in a changing society

Abstract

Placing development in context has been an important challenge for developmental psychology (Moen, Elder & Luscher, 1995). Bronfrenbrenner's (1979) ecological framework has provided a useful framework for this enterprise in the Irish context. It was adopted by Greene (1994) in an article she wrote for the special issue of The Irish Journal of Psychology on ‘The Irish Psyche’, and by Moane in her work on gender and colonialism (1999). In this article we look again at the ecology of Irish children using the framework provided in Greene's 1994 article. In the seven short years since that paper was written a number of changes has taken place in Irish society which have had an impact on the lives ofIrish children The Irish economy has experienced a period of unprecedented economic growth - earning it the label, “The Celtic Tiger.” Commentators would now place the start of this economic upturn as occurring in 1994. A striking indicator of change is the unemployment rate which dropped from 15.6% in 1993 to 4.4% in 2000. The pace of social change, already accelerating in the early 1990s, has continued to be rapid and since 1994 a number of legislative and policy initiatives have been implemented which have relevance to children. The need for an up-dated examination of the changes in Irish society and of the significance of those changes for the lives ofIrish children does not challenge the validity of the ecological framework - rather it is an important illustration of a primary assumption of the social contextual framework. That is, children and adults live their lives embedded in culture and culture is not a static entity: it is always changing.