Acculturation and religion in schools: the views of young people from minority belief backgrounds

This paper aims to explore the relationship between religious identity, acculturation strategies and perceptions of acculturation orientation in the school context amongst young people from minority
belief backgrounds. Based on a qualitative study including interviews with 26 young people from religious minority belief backgrounds in Northern Ireland, it is argued that acculturation theory provides a useful lens for understanding how young people from religious minority belief backgrounds navigate majority religious school contexts. Using a qualitative approach to explore acculturation theory enables an in-depth understanding of the inter-relationship between minority belief youth’s acculturation strategies and their respective school contexts. Similar to previous research, integrationist attitudes generally prevailed amongst minority belief young people in this study. The findings highlight how young people negotiate their religious identities in a complex web of inter-relationships between their minority religious belief community and the mainstream school culture as represented through peer and staff attitudes, school ethos and practices and religious education. Young people demonstrated differentiated understandings of acculturation orientations within the school context, which they evaluated on the basis of complex perceptions of educational policy, interpersonal relationships and individuals’ motivations. Findings are discussed in view of acculturation tensions, which arose particularly in relation to the religious education curriculum and their implications for opt-out provision as stipulated by human rights law.

Inclusion & the Special Educational Needs (SEN) Resource Base In Mainstream Schools: Physical Factors to Maximise Effectiveness.

As a society, we have a responsibility to provide an inclusive built environment. As part of the need to promote inclusion, there is now a growing trend to place pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN) into a mainstream school setting. This is often facilitated by providing a specialist SEN resource base located within the mainstream school. If so, the following paper outlines why the whole school should be considered when locating and implementing a SEN resource base. It also highlights the wider opportunities for enhancing inclusion for SEN pupils if giving holistic thought to the wider context of the resource base. It then indicates a four-stage approach, using the ASD pupil as an illustrative example, to help evaluate the optimum SEN resource base location within a mainstream school setting. Finally it highlights in conclusion, some benefits and challenges for an enriched school environment for all pupils, if considering genuine inclusion.

Affective disruption: Walter Benjamin and the 'history' of Ireland's industrial schools

What role do organizations play in writing history? In this paper, I address the part played by organizations in the enactment of large-scale violence, and focus on the ways in which the resulting histories come to be written. Drawing on the case of Ireland's industrial schools, I demonstrate how such accounts can act to serve the interests of those in power, effectively silencing and marginalizing weaker people. A theoretical lens that draws on ideas from Walter Benjamin and Judith Butler is helpful in understanding this; the concept of 'affective disruption' enables an exploration of how people's experiences of organizational violence can be reclaimed from the past, and protected in a continuous remembrance. Overall, this paper contributes a new perspective on the writing of organizational histories, particularly in relation to the enactment of violence. 

Social effects of collaborative learning in primary schools

There is conflicting evidence on whether collaborative group work leads to improved classroom relations, and if so how. A before and after design was used to measure the impact on work and play relations of a collaborative learning programme involving 575 students 9e12 years old in single- and mixed-age classes across urban and rural schools. Data were also collected on student interactions and teacher ratings of their group-work skills. Analysis of variance revealed significant gains for both types of relation. Multilevel modelling indicated that better work relations were the product of improving group skills, which offset tensions produced by transactive dialogue, and this effect fed through in turn to play relations. Although before intervention rural children were familiar with each other neither this nor age mix affected outcomes. The results suggest the social benefits of collaborative learning are a separate outcome of group work, rather than being either a pre-condition for, or a direct consequence of successful activity, but that initial training in group skills may serve to enhance these benefits.

International on-line reciprocal peer tutoring to promote modern language development in primary schools

The paper reports data from an on-line peer tutoring project. In the project 78, 9–12-year-old students from Scotland and Catalonia peer tutored each other in English and Spanish via a managed on-line envi- ronment. Significant gains in first language (Catalonian pupils) modern language (Scottish pupils) and attitudes towards modern languages (both Catalonian and Scottish pupils) were reported for the exper- imental group as compared to the control group. Results indicated that pupils tutored each other in using Piagetian techniques of error correction during the project. Error correction provided by tutors to tutees focussed on morph syntaxys, more specifically the correction of verbs. Peer support provided via the on- line environment was predominantly based on the tutor giving the right answer to the tutee. High rates of impact on tutee corrected messages were observed. The implications for peer tutoring initiative taking place via on-line environments are discussed. Implications for policy and practice are explored