EDUCATION POLICIES AND TEACHER DEPLOYMENT IN NORTHERN IRELAND: ETHNIC SEPARATION, CULTURAL ENCAPSULATION AND COMMUNITY CROSS-OVER

ABSTRACT

Education is a key mechanism for the restoration of inter-community relations in post-conflict societies. The Northern Ireland school system remains divided along sectarian lines. Much research has been conducted into the efficacy of initiatives developed to bring children together across this divide but there has been an absence of studies into the impact of educational division on teachers. A number of policies, separately and in combination, restrict teachers’ options to move across and between the divided school sectors. The recruitment of teachers is excepted from fair employment legislation; details of teachers’ community identity are consequently not collected, and little is known about the impact that ethnic identity, educational policies and sectoral practices have had on teacher deployment. This quantitative project investigates the extent to which the deployment of teachers in mainstream schools in Northern Ireland reflects the enduring community divide. It is observed that, whilst primary schools are staffed mainly by community-consistent teachers, there has been an increase in cross-over teachers in post-primary schools – particularly in the grammar sector. Around one-in-five teachers have had no educational experience outside of their community of origin; this cultural encapsulation may contribute to a reluctance to engage with contentious issues in reconciliation programmes.

Keywords:

• post-conflict education
• community division
• teacher identity
• Northern Ireland
• cultural encapsulation

6. Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to everyone who contributed to this research project. Particular thanks are due to Dr Alan McCully for his valuable feedback during the preparation of this paper.

7. Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

8. Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at here.

Notes

1. Shuttleworth and Lloyd (2009) considered a housing development to be ‘Single identity’ if more than 80% of residents shared the same ethnic/religious community identity.

2. Whilst all teachers have a right to freedom of conscience under Article 9 of the ECHR it is generally accepted that all primary school teachers are expected to have a RE certificate.

3. St Mary’s had been established in 1900 as a female teaching college; its male counterpart, St Joseph’s merged with St Mary’s in 1985 – survey results relating to these two institutions have been conflated in the data.

4. ECNI research provided a breakdown against only three categories: Controlled, Maintained and Voluntary Grammar. Primary and post primary figures have therefore been duplicated. The ECNI research had an additional identity categorisation ‘undertermined’.