In responding to globalisation, Irish curricula advocate active learning and cooperative groupwork methods in second-level schools but there are many difficulties in implementing them. This paper explores the experiences and perspectives of teachers, students, principals and university teacher educators and is based on a recent qualitative study. All respondents reported that there are major constraints to the use of these methods. Implementation of active learning methods requires an exploration, within a context of continuous professional development, of teacher values and motivation, of goals and contrasting paradigms in education, and of ways of building democratic structures and relationships within schools. (Contains 1 table.)