Practice links [Issue 38, June 2010]

Practice Links is a free e-publication for practitioners working in Irish social services, voluntary and nongovernmental sectors. Practice Links was created to enable practitioners to keep up-to-date with new publications, electronic resources and conference opportunities. Issue 38 contains the text for a proposed constitutional amendment on children’s rights

The differences in the social competence of children who attend integrated junior infant classes and children who attend segregated learning environments

There are a number of reasons why this researcher has decided to undertake this study into the differences in the social competence of children who attend integrated Junior Infant classes and children who attend segregated learning environments. Theses reasons are both personal and professional. My personal reasons stem from having grown up in a family which included both an aunt who presented with Down Syndrome and an uncle who presented with hearing impairment. Both of these relatives' experiences in our education system are interesting. My aunt was considered ineducable while her brother - my uncle - was sent to Dublin (from Cork) at six years of age to be educated by a religious order. My professional reasons, on the other hand, stemmed from my teaching experience. Having taught in both special and integrated classrooms it became evident to me that there was somewhat 'suspicion' attached to integration. Parents of children without disabilities questioned whether this process would have a negative impact on their children's education. While parents of children with disabilities debated whether integrated settings met the specific needs of their children. On the other hand, I always questioned whether integration and inclusiveness meant the same thing. My research has enabled me to find many answers. Increasingly, children with special educational needs (SEN) are attending a variety of integrated and inclusive childcare and education settings. This contemporary practice of educating children who present with disabilities in mainstream classrooms has stimulated vast interest on the impact of such practices on children with identified disabilities. Indeed, children who present with disabilities "fare far better in mainstream education than in special schools" (Buckley, cited in Siggins, 2001,p.25). However, educators and practitioners in the field of early years education and care are concerned with meeting the needs of all children in their learning environments, while also upholding high academic standards (Putman, 1993). Fundamentally, therefore, integrated education must also produce questions about the impact of this practice on children without identified special educational needs. While these questions can be addressed from the various areas of child development (i.e. cognitive, physical, linguistic, emotional, moral, spiritual and creative), this research focused on the social domain. It investigates the development of social competence in junior infant class children without identified disabilities as they experience different educational settings.

Leisure and surveillance in Irish childhoods: A cross-class study of Cork city

This research provides an interpretive cross-class analysis of the leisure experience of children, aged between six and ten years, living in Cork city. This study focuses on the cultural dispositions underpinning parental decisions in relation to children’s leisure activities, with a particular emphasis on their child-surveillance practices. In this research, child-surveillance is defined as the adult monitoring of children by technological means, physical supervision, community supervision, or adult supervised activities (Nelson, 2010; Lareau, 2003; Fotel and Thomsen, 2004). This research adds significantly to understandings of Irish childhood by providing the first in-depth qualitative analysis of the surveillance of children’s leisure-time. Since the 1990s, international research on children has highlighted the increasingly structured nature of children’s leisure-time (Lareau, 2011; Valentine & McKendrick, 1997). Furthermore, research on child-surveillance has found an increase in the intensive supervision of children during their unstructured leisure-time (Nelson, 2010; Furedi, 2008; Fotel and Thomsen, 2004). This research bridges the gap between these two key bodies of literature, providing a more integrated overview of children’s experience of leisure in Ireland. Using Bourdieu’s (1992) model of habitus, field and capital, the dispositions that shape parents’ decisions about their children’s leisure time are interrogated. The holistic view of childhood adopted in this research echoes the ‘Whole Child Approach’ by analysing the child’s experience within a wider set of social relationships including family, school, and community. Underpinned by James and Prout’s (1990) paradigm on childhood, this study considers Irish children’s agency in negotiating with parents’ decisions regarding leisure-time. The data collated in this study enhances our understanding of the micro-interactions between parents and children and, the ability of the child to shape their own experience. Moreover, this is the first Irish sociological research to identify and discuss class distinctions in children’s agentic potential during leisure-time.