The Impact of Workplace Bullying on Primary School Teachers and Principals

While previous research has consistently cited education as a high risk profession for negative workplace relationships, there has been little consideration of the impact of workplace bullying for those involved. This paper seeks to address this lacuna through the analysis of 24, in-depth interviews with self-identified victims of workplace bullying who work, or have worked, in primary schools. The study reveals the profound physical, psychological, social, and economic effects of these toxic behaviors upon the interviewees, along with the resistance strategies they employed to help them cope with their experiences. Through a lens of Foucauldian conceptualisation of power, this study explores the broader implications for school organizational culture, as well as for individual teachers and the pupils they teach.     

Practising leadership in newly multi-ethnic schools: tensions in the field?

This paper explores the leadership practices of three principals following a period of intensive immigration in Ireland. Drawing on the work of Bourdieu, it conceptualises schools as structured social spaces and of their leadership work as a form of practising. This practising is an outcome of the intersection between deeply embedded subjectivities operating in diverse fields of action that shape, constrain and transform each principal’s practices. Presenting an analytical model that highlights the circular and capillary-like dimension to such practising, the paper explores how principals’ recognition of immigrant children (their recognitive practices) as well as investment in supporting their learning (distributive practices) are shaped by the logics of practice across different fields, as well as by their own evolving habitus and struggle to be authentic in a period of rapid social change. Practising effective leadership in newly multi-ethnic schools must be conceived as layered and multiple but must be underpinned by an ethic of justice, if the minoritised status of ‘ethnic’ others is to be challenged and overcome.     

Mobilising capitals? Migrant children's negotiation of their everyday lives in school

This paper considers how first‐generation immigrant children contribute to processes of capital accumulation through their negotiation and positioning in Irish schools. Drawing on the concepts of social and cultural capital, as well as inter‐generational analyses of children's role in the structuring of everyday life, the paper highlights migrant children's strategic orientation to their primary schooling, positioning themselves in order to maximise the exchange value from their education. Social class, gender and ethnic/migrant status were identified as significant to the strategies adopted, and how children coped with their positioning as ethnic ‘other’ in school.     

Positioning pedagogy—a matter of children’s rights

This paper foregrounds pedagogy in the realisation of children’s rights to non-discrimination and serving their best interests, as articulated in the UNCRC. Drawing on a mixed methodological study of teachers in 12 schools it does so through exploring teacher pedagogies in terms of how they 'think', 'do' and 'talk' pedagogy, conceived as their pedagogic 'habitus'. Findings confirm contradictions between teachers’ ideals and their practice that is significantly mediated by the socio-cultural context of their schools, gender and presence of migrant children. Especially striking is that neither social justice concerns nor children’s rights explicitly emerge in their narratives, in turn influencing how they ‘do’ pedagogy with different groups of children. This contradiction is understood as a dialectical process of re/action influenced by structures, policies and the exercise of power in local contexts. The UNCRC provides a generative mechanism within which to hold government to account for the impact of policies, especially in challenging contexts. To be realised in practice, however, it also needs to be embedded in teacher habitus, shaping their dispositions toward children’s rights to non-discrimination and serving their best interests in education.     

Decentralisation in Education: a Dutch study

Abstract

Much of the research in the area of ethnicity and schooling is conducted in countries with a long tradition of immigration. The rapidity of social change in Ireland at a time of unprecedented economic growth is such that many schools, while still ‘mainly white’, are grappling with the particular challenges that are posed by new patterns of immigration. How these schools, and indeed the state, adapts to this changed social context has important implications for the transition of Irish society to a more multicultural state, which values and respects cultural and ethnic diversity in all its forms. This article considers these issues by exploring the responses of a sample of teachers to immigrant students in their schools. Central to the analysis is the role of the state through its action or inaction, in framing teacher discourses in inclusionary or exclusionary terms. State policies, it is argued, are underpinned by a particular conceptualisation of Irish and national identity which positions minority ethnic groups as ‘other’, with direct implications for both teacher perception and practice with immigrant students in schools.     

Using the dynamic approach to school improvement to promote quality and equity in education: a European study

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability - This paper presents the results of a European study investigating the extent to which the Dynamic Approach to School Improvement (DASI) can...     

Sixth‐formers reading ‘the troubles’: A cross‐community investigation

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a one‐year (2002–2003) action research project conducted in a representative number of post‐primary schools across the sectarian divide in Belfast. The research investigated the responses of sixth‐form students to a number of carefully chosen texts focused on ‘The Troubles’. In analysing the pupils’ responses, it was discovered that, although inherited sectarian tensions persist, it is possible in many cases to encourage pupils to critically examine their attitudes and even abandon some prejudices. The key elements are the choice of texts and the need to provide ample and skilfully directed opportunity for dialogue and reflection. These findings are particularly relevant in the current climate of curriculum change, with the new emphasis on ‘diversity’ as well as ‘local and global citizenship’.     

‘You feel ashamed that you are not in the higher group’—Children’s psychosocial response to ability grouping in primary school

The impact of performative focused agendas on how teachers ‘do’ teaching and how children ‘do’ learning cannot be understated. While research continues to highlight the negative impact of ability grouping on children’s academic and social learning experiences in the classroom, policy imperatives (both global and local) continue to promote ability grouping as an ‘effective’ pedagogic tool for meeting the diverse needs of children, especially in the areas of numeracy and literacy. We argue that this is a symbolically violent process that negatively impacts the psychosocial positioning of children as they negotiate their identities within the figured world of the primary school classroom. This in turn influences their learner identities, as well as their perceptions of their ability to learn. Drawing on data collected with 100 children in three case study schools, we show how ability grouping evoked strong emotional and psychosocial responses characterised by feelings of ‘shame’, ‘upset’ and ‘inferiority’ for those in the low-ability groups. In contrast, children placed in higher-ability groups felt a sense of ‘pride’, ‘happiness’ and ‘confidence’. Ability grouping maps a geography of affect within the classroom demarcating not only how children ‘do’ learning, but also how they embody learning through a particular feeling of ‘being’ a learner in the classroom.