https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3302-9550
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ABSTRACT
This paper explores how special educational needs (SEN) and social class can become intertwined in post-primary school choice in Ireland. The paper draws on data generated during a three-year ethnographic study of a DEIS school. Data are analysed using Holland et al.’s (1998. Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press) positional identities, authored selves and figured worlds in order to examine how learner identities and school choice processes can become informed by emergent school cultures being formed and re-formed by neoliberal marketisation of education and how these actions are taken up in the identity work of young people and their families. Soft barriers and their contribution to aspects of school stratification by social class and SEN in this setting are explored. Finally, the paper calls for recognition of the responsibilities of every school to own diversity in their own settings.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 DEIS represents a policy intervention addressing educational disadvantage in Ireland. The acronym stands for Developing Equality of Opportunity in Schools, with DEIS being the Irish language word for opportunity.
2 The Irish Traveller community are an indigenous ethnic minority population with their language, culture and traditions. The community have a nomadic tradition. As of the last census in 2016, there were 30,967 citizens declared Traveller ethnicity.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Kevin Cahill
Kevin Cahill is a faculty member in the School of Education, University College Cork. He teaches, writes and supervises research across the fields of inclusive education, sociology of education and pedagogy.