Choosing schools: explorations in post-primary school choice in an urban Irish working class community

Abstract

This paper examines post-primary school choice processes in the urban Irish working-class community of Portown. Here, there is an awareness of hegemonic neoliberal ideals and how school choice becomes a significantly classed space characterised by market ideologies and structural inequality. This critical ethnography explored the world through participant observation, semi-structured interviews over a 3-year period. The data examined here are drawn specifically from investigations into school choice processes. It deploys identity theories as thinking tools to examine the classed nature of engagement with school choice markets. The findings delineate three distinct groups of choosers in this school community: passive transitioners, active choosers and second-schoolers. The findings of the study reveal the entwined and co-constructed nature of identity and social class as well as examining the role played by school choices and differential access to economic, cultural and social resources in these processes.

Keywords:

• school choice
• social class
• neoliberalism and Irish education
• educational inequality

Notes on contributors

Kevin Cahill is a Lecturer in Education at the University College Cork and a former post-primary teacher of English and SEN. His doctoral research was a critical ethnography of school choice and identity construction. Dr Cahill's research interests include educational inequality, critical studies in education, literacies and sociocultural theory.

Kathy Hall is Head of the School of Education at University College Cork. Previous appointments include Professor of Education at the Open University, Professor of Childhood Education at Leeds Metropolitan University and Senior Lecturer in Education Studies at Christ Church, Canterbury. Her research seeks to develop sociocultural understanding of learning and pedagogy and she has published widely in these areas. Professor Hall served as supervisor on the doctoral research upon which this paper is based.