Early years education is offered free to all three-year-olds in Northern Ireland, prior to starting primary school, and most parents take advantage of this offer for their children. An experience of early years education has been shown to considerably improve life chances and to be important in starting the process of building a shared society,…

Divided societies emerging from conflict are found around the globe, and these divisions can cause, and may be perpetuated by, disunity in educational provision. Establishing sound and equitable education is considered vital in promoting reconciliation in places with apparently intractable conflict. Northern Ireland was involved in ethno-sectarian…

This paper examines the experience of Shared Teachers (STs) who were employed on temporary contracts across school partnerships designed to enrich and integrate the educational experiences of children in primary schools in rural and religiously diverse areas in Northern Ireland, as part of a specific Shared Education Programme. In a society…

Education in Northern Ireland continues to be organised along denominational lines, with more than 90% of pupils attending separate Catholic or "de facto" Protestant schools. Since 2007, an initiative known as 'shared education' has operated in the region to provide opportunities for pupils from separate schools to meet and learn…

There is considerable literature concerning the impact of education in divided societies. Some seek to defend separate schools, often for different faith groups, while others stress the benefits of school integration on social cohesiveness. Contact theory has been employed in efforts in many countries to address social discord. Northern Ireland is…

The community separation of the school system in Northern Ireland limits opportunities for daily cross-community interaction between young people. The deployment pattern of teachers is largely consistent with this divide. Pupils are therefore unlikely to be taught by a teacher from a community background other than their own. Nonetheless, recent…

The ethnic separation of the school system in Northern Ireland along Catholic and Protestant community lines limits opportunities for daily cross-community interaction between young people. Recent research has shown that, whilst the deployment pattern of teachers is largely consistent with this divide, a small proportion of teachers has diverted…

The purpose of this study was to examine contrasting managerial approaches to cultural diversity in secondary schools in Northern Ireland and understand the influence of different approaches on school culture and student attitudes. Northern Ireland has a long-standing history of conflict between Protestant and Catholic cultural groups, which has…

The Good Friday Agreement (1997) brought political violence in Northern Ireland to an end and provided the basis for shared government. A consociational political structure was adopted which institutionalised community differences while encouraging coalition government. The goal was that a requirement for consensus decisions would encourage…

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…

Northern Ireland is now a post-conflict society but one of the legacies of the "troubles" is an education system which is defined by religious affiliation/identity. A parallel system of schools continues to exist where Catholics largely attend "maintained" schools and Protestants "controlled" or state schools. While…

International human rights instruments provide a legal basis for an agreed set of human values globally. These 'values' are expected to underpin the purposes and content of education. This paper aims to explore how compliance with human rights instruments and values is balanced by educational leaders in Northern Ireland where diverse…

Social essentialism, the belief that members of certain social categories share unobservable properties, licenses expectations that those categories are natural and a good basis for inference. A challenge for cognitive developmental theory is to give an account of how children come to develop essentialist beliefs about socially important…

This study explores the current understanding of cross-sectoral collaboration between schools in a divided society. The paper provides the context surrounding inter-school collaboration in Northern Ireland then presents findings based on a qualitative study of five post-primary partnerships made up of schools from the various sectors in Northern…

This article reviews research on history education that addresses recent or ongoing conflict since 1990. History education is recognized as a key site for constructing identity, transmitting collective memory, and shaping "imagined communities," which makes its revision or reform a complex and important part of education in emergencies…