This paper reports a longitudinal study of levels of moral reasoning in a convenience sample of Irish undergraduate university students, using the Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT2). The study was timely, as higher education institutions are becoming increasingly interested in the promotion of social capital and the development of the whole person. A…

In recent years, music at Leaving Certificate level has come under increasing focus in media and higher education discourse as an easy option. In particular, scant attention has been paid to the musical knowledge and skills needed in the transition to higher music education within the Irish context. This paper addresses the perceived gap in…

Across many countries, young people are differentiated into academic and vocational tracks, a pattern that is closely related to their social class background. The Irish secondary system has been largely undifferentiated, but the introduction of a pre-vocational programme, the Leaving Certificate Applied (LCA), has brought an element of tracking…

This article focuses on the educational life histories of nine prisoner learners aged between 18 and 21 years which were collated as part of doctoral work which sought to access the life histories of adult male prisoners who were attending a prison school while incarcerated in prison. The nine life histories of the young men were collated not only…

This paper reports on an investigation into the conceptual knowledge, through the domain of fraction division, of prospective secondary mathematics teachers in their final/fourth year of undergraduate initial teacher education. The aim of the study is to assess if levels of conceptual knowledge in this domain are sufficient in order for these…

This paper draws on psychoanalytic and socio-political perspectives of trauma and emotion to examine how "critical emotional praxis" may serve as a pedagogical tool for reconciliation education. A major challenge for teachers in traumatized societies struggling to enact reconciliation education is that emotions of trauma are often appropriated by…

The changing ethnic make-up of Irish society has impacted upon schools. Existing, largely qualitative studies have highlighted mixed attitudes towards ethnic minorities. Literature has also focused on the role of the state in articulating a discourse that shapes school-level responses to minorities. This paper critiques the idea of a unitary state…

Professional development (PD) is essential for primary school teachers to meet the demands of the education system. Quality PD is aligned with classroom conditions, school contexts and teachers' daily experiences. The purpose of the study was to explore primary teachers' experiences of a 6-week physical education professional development programme…

Ireland was one of the 38 countries/education systems that participated in the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) in 2009. This is the first international comparative study in this area in which Ireland has participated since 1971. The study measured the civic knowledge of 14-year-olds and their attitudes towards, and…

While there has been extensive research on online communities of enquiry, little work has been done on the extent to which cultural factors can inhibit student participation. In this study of a "blended" model of learning in which students attended face-to-face lectures but were required to take part in online seminars, we found that although most…

Several studies concluded that deep reflection is infrequently reached in student portfolios. An explanation for these disappointing conclusions might be that motivation for portfolio reflection determines the quality of reflection. This study aimed to examine the relationship between motivation for using digital portfolios and reflection.…

Early school-leaving imposes costs on the individual and society, and is linked to factors including gender, family income and parental education, community deprivation, and academic history. In Ireland, the role of the school in shaping patterns of early school-leaving is unclear. Employing the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) from social…

This paper presents some of the findings of a study investigating young people's attitudes towards Europe and the European Union and their self-reported learning about European citizenship in Ireland. The paper considers adolescents' attitudes and motivations for language learning in light of recent literature arguing for the role of modern…

This paper, based on research in five British schools, focuses on the experience of black young people in the British education system. It is set within the contexts of both persistent underperformance and overrepresentation in school exclusion of these children. The concept of intersectionality informs the study in terms of disaggregating the…

Drawing upon data collected as part of a research project exploring diversity in Irish higher education, this article focuses on the relational realm of under-represented students' experiences. It commences with a brief overview of the background and context as well as the methodology of the study. The article then presents and explores a number…