Teacher Education for Citizenship in Diverse Societies

SCoTENS The Standing Conference on Teacher Education, North and South TEACHER EDUCATION FOR CITIZENSHIP IN DIVERSE SOCIETIES 2005 CONFERENCE AND ANNUAL REPORTS Secretariat provided by The Centre for Cross Border Studies THE STANDING CONFERENCE ON TEACHER EDUCATION NORTH AND SOUTH (SCoTENS) RECEIVES FINANCIAL SUPPORT FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND THE DEPARTMENT FOR EMPLOYMENT AND LEARNING IN NORTHERN IRELAND, AND THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE IN IRELAND. CHAIRPERSONS INTRODUCTION 4 Professor Richard McMinn Professor John Coolahan ANNUAL CONFERENCE REPORT 10 Teacher Education for Citizenship in Diverse Societies Malahide, Co. Dublin 10-11 November 2005 SECTORAL CONFERENCE REPORTS 75 Building Research Capacity North and South Dublin, 18-19 February 2005 Third North/South Conference on Initial Teacher Education Dublin, 3-4 June 2005 Fourth Annual Conference of the Irish Association of Social, Scientific and Environmental Education (IASSEE) Belfast, 20-21 June 2005 RESEARCH AND EXCHANGE REPORTS 85 Together Towards Inclusion (Phase 1) – Final Report Special Education Needs in Initial Teacher Education: Reviewing Policy and Practice in Ireland Study of Student Teachers’ Experiences of History, Geography and Science (IASSEE Survey – Phase 1) North South Student Teacher Exchange Project Website Report FINANCIAL REPORT (2003-2006) 134 3 Chairpersons’ Introduction The background to the 2005 Programme of Work The composition of the population of Ireland, both North and South, has changed dramatically in the last decade. Even if the ‘athletic youths’ and ‘comely maidens’ innocently besporting themselves at the crossroads of rural Ireland existed only in de Valera’s imagination rather than in the realities of the 1940s, the changes of recent years have been dizzying, all the more so for taking many of us somewhat by surprise. John Hinde’s less than accurate picture postcard images of donkeys carrying creels of turf to heat homely thatched cottages have given way to a land of urban by-passes, ‘bungalow blight’ and a property boom which has driven many urban dwellers into the depths of the Irish countryside, literally ‘beyond the Pale’, to suffer the tyranny of the 4-6 hour daily commute to and from work. The Celtic Tiger’s pursuit of all things shiny and new has crucially depended on a multiplying army of immigrants, providing an ever-available source of inexpensive labour, drawn from the countries of Eastern Europe and beyond. For example, recent statistics suggest that there are more than 100,000 Poles living and working in Ireland. As one of the contributions to this report points out, Northern Ireland has experienced a similar population influx, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale, with the result that in February 2005 at least 30 mother tongues could be identified in the schools of the Southern Education and Library Board (SELB) area. Who could have predicted that the playgrounds of Armagh, Dungannon and Portadown would echo to Arabic, Portuguese, Tag-a-log or Ukrainian? Equally, have we fully absorbed the reality that in some primary school classrooms in the western suburbs of Dublin, in excess of twenty nationalities are now represented? Annual Conference Thus it was more than timely that the Standing Conference on Teacher Education North and South (SCoTENS) chose in 2005 to focus particularly on ‘Teacher Education for Citizenship in Diverse Societies’, especially at its annual conference in the Grand Hotel, Malahide, Co. Dublin (10-11 November 2005). The conference was chaired on the first day by Tom Boland, Chief Executive of the Higher Education Authority (HEA) and on the second day by Professor Richard McMinn, Principal of Stranmillis University College. The event was officially opened by Ms Sile de Valera, Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science, who stressed the need to recognise and acknowledge the various cultural, religious, ethnic and other groups that now exist in our communities and explore ways in which these differences can be respected. This theme was taken up and expanded by Professor Jagdish Gundara, the current holder of the UNESCO Chair in Intercultural Studies at the University of London’s Institute of Education, who deftly linked the debate about citizenship education in Britain and Ireland to both the post ‘9/11’ international scene and to 4 key themes in Irish history such as the sectarian tensions in County Armagh in the 1790s which gave birth to the Orange Order, not to mention the much earlier incursions of the Vikings and Normans. Dr Derrick Wilson from the Future Ways Programme at the School of Education, University of Ulster, in a hard-hitting presentation, challenged all teacher educators in the context of citizenship education to reflect on whether teacher training is in fact a space for critical reflection. Dr Dympna Devine from the Department of Education, University College Dublin, rooted the challenges of citizenship education for teacher educators in the centrality of children’s own social world and their perspectives and experiences. On the second day of the conference, Ms Signe Marie Natvig Andreassen, Rector of the Gran School, Oslo, Norway, introduced a further note of classroom reality with her pragmatic account of the challenges and the achievements of leading a multinational school in a socially deprived urban area. Dr Roland Tormey from the University of Limerick provided a sociological perspective with his stimulating paper on ‘Belonging, Emotion and Intercultural Teacher Education’, which posed the interesting question as to what extent “our Colleges and (Education) Departments” are “places where students are supported in engaging in their own emotional development process?” All of these contrasting and, at times, provocative keynote addresses understandably provoked lively debates on the conference floor. However there was much more to the 2005 conference than the formal presentations. The pre-dinner reception saw the launch of the report from the ‘Together Towards Inclusion’ North-South project, which is a joint venture by Integrate Ireland Language and Training (a campus company of Trinity College Dublin) and the Southern Education and Library Board (NI), seeking to explore how structural and management issues must be addressed in order to meet the educational needs of pupils from non-English speaking backgrounds. The project is also hoping to develop a ‘toolkit’ for use by school principals and teachers attempting to address the language and learning needs of non-English speaking children in the primary classroom. The first phase involved eight participating primary schools drawn from both North and South and was led by Ms Mary Yarr (SELB), Professor David Little (TCD, IILT) and Ms Barbara Simpson (TCD, IILT). The report of its first phase was launched by Professor Sheelagh Drudy (UCD). Its contents are reproduced in the pages which follow and represent the outcome of a valuable example of North-South collaboration. The second day saw the launch of a new section of the award-winning SCoTENS website. This deals with the topical subject of citizenship, which is being introduced into the school curriculum in both political jurisdictions. A presentation on its contents and development (which is ongoing) was made by Dr Roger Austin, Head of the School of Education at the University of Ulster, Ms Una O’Connor also of the University of Ulster, and Mr Gerry Jeffers of the National 5 University of Ireland, Maynooth. During the second day of the conference, six work groups tackled subjects relevant to the overall conference theme. The topics and the workshop leaders are listed below: • Taking a Whole School Approach in a Culturally Diverse Society: Ms Mary Gannon and Ms Margaret Patterson • Violence in Schools in a Culturally Diverse Society: Dr Mona O’Moore and Mr Stephen Minton • School Leadership in a Culturally Diverse Society: Dr Tom Hesketh and Dr Jim Gleeson • ICT & Citizenship in a Culturally Diverse Society: Dr Roger Austin and Dr Paul Conway • Teacher Education, Inclusion and the Integration of Special Needs: Mr Hugh Kearns and Dr Michael Shevlin • Preparing Teachers for a Culturally Diverse Society: Mr Gerry Jeffers and Ms Una O’Connor. The SCoTENS Committee has for some time been anxious to engage a wider group of teacher educators in a discussion about the future directions SCoTENS should take. The conference provided an ideal opportunity to undertake this consultation in the context of a presentation by Professor John Coolahan, Professor Emeritus at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, which laid out a number of possible alternative approaches. Following some group discussion, a final plenary session was chaired by Dr Pauric Travers, President of St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra. The texts of the keynote addresses and reports of the six discussion groups are included in this Annual Report. Programme of Work Sectoral conferences funded or part-funded by SCoTENS Each of the sectoral conferences, which were funded or part-funded by SCoTENS in 2005, had identified a clear set of aims and objectives for their work, linked to specific outcomes. Full details of each of the conferences are contained in the respective reports which appear in this volume. They were: • Building Research Capacity North and South: Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI) and British Educational Research Association (BERA) in February 2005 • Third Irish Association for Social, Scientific and Environmental Education (IASSEE) Conference in June 2005

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