Ethnicizing Ulster’s Protestants?: Ulster-Scots education in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT

The Ulster-Scots ethnolinguistic ‘revival,’ often considered to be the ethnic, cultural or linguistic expression of unionism and loyalism, has recently made inroads into schools across Northern Ireland. With intercommunal educational segregation pervasive in the province, the teaching of such an ‘ethnic identity’ has potential sociological ramifications. Utilizing an in-depth textual analysis of the Ulster-Scots Agency’s educational materials and interviews with educationalists and political elites, I contend that although this ethnicization represents a break of sorts with traditional unionist-loyalist ideas rather than an unproblematic reinforcement of them, it holds considerable potential for the deepening of normative senses of communal difference.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnicization
• ethnicity
• education
• unionism
• loyalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The proportion of pupils across all educational institutions, nursery to sixth form, within the integrated sector was 6.48% for 2015/2016. The proportion of primary level attendees at integrated schools was 5.65% in 2015/2016, rising by 13.4% since 2010/2011. While the proportion was higher at post-primary in 2015/2016, at 8.43%, this figure has fallen continually for years 8–12 since 2010/2011 (figures adapted from Matthews 2016).

2. Member of Legislative Assembly.

3. Ulster-Scots spellings used in transcription to reflect speech employed.

4. PS5 frequently used ‘other’ and ‘local’ euphemistically, inferring Catholic/nationalist and Protestant/unionist, respectively.

5. Country.

6. Forwards.

7. Interviewees referring to something as ‘political’ was invariably negative, a synonym for ‘sectarian’.