‘The falcon cannot hear the falconer …’. The Pedagogical Turn and the Negative Space of Irish Art Education

Current education policy discourse in Ireland, as elsewhere, is replete with reference to innovation, creativity and enterprise. Meanwhile, the ‘pedagogical turn’ is a dominant motif in current discourse in art practice, curating and critique, in Ireland and internationally. This article firstly considers some of the implications of the ‘turn’ as a concept in art and education. In that context, it goes on to address changing patterns of curriculum design, development and reform in Ireland. Next, it describes the evolution of Irish education policy over the past decade in the context of global experiences. The particular experience of art education in Ireland is then considered in the light of the curriculum culture and the wider policy discourses already identified. Finally, some implications of the Irish experience are addressed, in terms of art practice at the edges of art education, and art education at the edges of education practice.     

叶芝的戏剧理念:去殖民化的诗学

本文通过对《爱尔兰戏剧运动》的文本细读来分析叶芝的戏剧理念及其历史内涵。叶芝希望通过剧场艺术来呼唤和建构爱尔兰民族精神,并以此对抗英国帝国主义的戏剧文化;他把当时风行的现实主义客厅剧视为欧洲中产阶级堕落的文化表现,提倡回到民族主义的浪漫主义艺术。在语言上,他也坚持爱尔兰西部乡村农民所说英语具有的音乐性,而否定现代社会受教育阶层的新闻语体。这样一系列的对峙,使叶芝的戏剧理念呈现为“去殖民化的诗学”。     

论18世纪末爱尔兰冲突及英国政府的化解策略

18世纪末期,爱尔兰争取独立的步伐加快,内部冲突不断加剧。针对爱尔兰出现的严重冲突,英国政府采取了一系列化解措施,如试图从法律上解决爱尔兰的地位问题;通过解放天主教徒来缓解宗教矛盾等等。由于措施不当,因而为以后的冲突埋下了祸根。     

Going in for Competitions

This article assesses the extensive ‘reader competitions’ run in popular magazines and story papers of the early twentieth century. Using examples from Irish story papers, it examines the appeal of these competitions to both the publishers and the readers. For readers, competitions offered an opportunity to display skills which combined the results of universal education with the more playful knowledge that was part of popular parlour games and other leisure activities of the time. They also offered readers an opportunity to ‘write back’ to the mass media, with indications of an extremely high level of interactivity between readers and editors, including reader suggestions for competition ideas, and disputes regarding the rules and judging of contests. The article goes on to argue that these competitions were themselves significant examples of mass media structures of the time, relying as they did on the specific forms of print culture and upon mechanisms of industrial time and communication processes.     

Motivation and the adult Irish language learner

What motivates adult language learners in the city of Belfast to enrol and remain in an Irish class in the first years of the twenty-first century is the subject of the research study reported here. The research is placed within the context of the long history of interest in Irish revival in the city as far back as the eighteenth century and is related to relevant literature on motivation and language learning. The paper provides results from quantitative data collected by means of questionnaires issued to learners throughout the city. An overwhelming interest in culture is what primarily motivates these learners to enrol in an Irish class. Learners are also motivated by a strong sense of identity and by a felt obligation to help preserve the language. The paper illuminates issues of language restoration and the links between identity and language preservation. The research reported here contributes to the literatures on motivation, on adult learning and on language survival.     

Engagement with empires: Irish Catholic female religious teachers in colonial South Australia 1868–1901

This paper addresses the roles of Irish Catholic female religious institutes for teachers in the context of the recent debates about education and empire. Nineteenth century colonial South Australia provides an opportunity to examine such institutes, for example the Irish Dominicans from Cabra Dublin, the Irish Mercy Institute from Baggot Street, Dublin, and to a much lesser extent, the English Dominicans from Stone in England. The discussion canvasses the notion of the role of these religious teachers within three empires: the British Empire, the Irish church acting as a ‘Second Empire’, and within a third empire, the ‘Woman's Empire’. Key aspects in examining the flow or transference of education by these Sisters in a colonial setting, lie in their own histories, their spiritual focus, the schools they established for their students, and the curriculum they adopted in the social and geographic environments in which they found themselves.     

The audiovisual action plan: a new audiovisual policy for Ireland

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the recent plan for the audiovisual industries introduced (after some delay) by the Irish Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The Audiovisual Action Plan (“the Plan”) sets out the Department’s approach to the audiovisual industries and is, it is contended, evidence of a marketization of culture consistent with a creative industries perspective. The analysis of the Plan in a wider policy context identifies key issues shaping audiovisual production in Ireland. Using a thematic analysis approach from Braun and Clark (2005, 2019) a number of themes are developed from analysis of the relevant policy documents, broadly conceived around the increasing instrumentalism of culture. Taking a political economy perspective allows for development of themes around the commodification of the nation-state through the provision of policies that actively encourage a certain type of audiovisual production. Building on Mosco’s work on political economy (Mosco, 2009) the concept of spatialization from Lefebvre (Lefebvre, 1991) is used to interrogate the production of and commodification of space through Specifically, this article interrogates the policy norms underpinning the Audiovisual Action Plan introduced by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht in Ireland in 2018 as part of Culture 2025, the national cultural policy framework. It identifies the key proposals which affect the audiovisual industries. It is concluded that the Plan (and other relevant policy documents) support a spatialized, commodified view of the audiovisual industries as primarily industrial in nature, paying scant attention to the consideration of such industries as cultural forces.     

How are graduates and alumni featured in university strategic plans? Lessons from Ireland

This paper presents research from a small-scale study analysing how graduates and alumni feature in the strategic plans of all Irish universities (n?=?7). The data suggest that the word ‘graduate’ is used to describe the work of the university as an enabler for the graduate, to prepare for the employment to acquire key skills, towards a foundation of ‘graduateness’ such as reflective thinking, moral reasoning and lifelong learning aligning with the institution’s key performance indicators. In contrast, ‘alumni’ are featured related to alumnus/alumna success. Irish Higher Education Institutions view alumni as a key enabler to contribute to the university’s mission and vision: through giving, both of their time and philanthropic donations. Based on the strategic plan discourse, the role of alumni in Irish universities suggests a similar trend, relying on alumni as an internal stakeholder with an external ability to offer value to the institution.     

爱尔兰母亲或大母神——叶芝剧作《胡里痕的凯瑟琳》中的民族精神悖论

《胡里痕的凯瑟琳》是叶芝最重要的剧作之一,也是爱尔兰民族戏剧运动的一座里程碑。本文通过对该剧文本和历史语境的分析,集中阐发了在这一政治文化意象中凝聚的爱尔兰民族精神悖论：作为爱尔兰母亲,她召唤民族之子献身于爱尔兰的解放事业;作为大母神,她又不断地煽动狭隘、事仇的民族主义情绪和暴力的群众政治。正是这一民族精神悖论,培育了叶芝对爱尔兰的矛盾情感,并影响他创造性的生命轨迹和个人的情感历程。     

The Evolution of Athleticism in Elite Irish Schools 1878–1914. Beyond the Finn/Cronin Debate

The debate about the development of sport in Ireland is a lively one and is broadening all the time as more and more historians investigate it. This essay examines the criticisms by Cronin on Finn and argues that Cronin has at best an imperfect understanding of Athleticism as an education ideology. It explores the ideology of Athleticism with a focus on two elite Irish schools and points the way for more detailed research approach in understanding the extent of Athleticism in these schools and its diffusion into wider Irish society.