Making meaningful connections: Using insights from social pedagogy in statutory child and family social work practice

Reports into incidents of child death and serious injury have highlighted consistently concern about the capacity of social workers to communicate skilfully with children. Drawing on data collected as part of an Economic and Social Research Council funded UK-wide research project exploring social workers’ communicative practices with children, this paper explores how approaches informed by social pedagogy can assist social workers in connecting and communicating children. The qualitative research included data generated from 82 observations of social workers’ everyday encounters with children. Social pedagogical concepts of ‘haltung’ (attitude), ‘head, heart and hands’ and ‘the common third’ are outlined as potentially helpful approaches for facilitating the intimacies of inter-personal connections and enhancing social workers’ capacity to establish and sustain meaningful communication and relationships with children in the face of austere social, political and organisational contexts.

Musically Consonant, Socially Dissonant: Orange Walks and Catholic Interpretation in West-Central Scotland

This article examines the music used by the Orange Order, in its public parades, more commonly referred to as “Orange Walks.” The Orange Order is an exclusively Protestant fraternal organization, which traces its roots to 1690 and the victory of the Protestant Prince William of Orange over the Catholic King James. Yet, as in Northern Ireland, many consider the group to be sectarian and view its public celebrations as a display of ethno-religious triumphalism. This article explores the extra-musical factors associated with Orangeism’s most iconic song, “The Sash My Father Wore,” how other groups have misappropriated the song, and how this has distorted its meaning and subsequent interpretation.

Recent statistics have shown that Glasgow hosts more Orange parades each year than in Belfast and Derry/Londonderry combined, yet while there have been many anthropological and ethnomusicological studies of Northern Ireland’s Orange parades, very little research has focused on similar traditions in Scotland. This article seeks to address that gap in the literature and is intended as a preparatory study, laying the groundwork for further analysis.

Exploring the influences on classroom-based contact via shared education in Northern Ireland

Initiatives in intercultural education have frequently involved the promotion of contact between members of different groups as a means of improving intergroup relations. Experience from Northern Ireland suggests, however, that such schemes have often been organised and delivered in such a way that opportunities for sustained, high-quality contact are limited. This paper considers processes of contact in one relatively recent initiative, “shared education”, which involves collaboration between separate schools to deliver classes to Catholic and Protestant pupils in mixed groups. Employing qualitative methods of observation and interviewing to capture participants’ experiences of contact, the research explores the influences on the quality and frequency of cross-group interaction in the shared class. With findings highlighting the subject and pedagogy, teacher’s approach and classroom arrangement as key factors, the study offers suggestions for policy and practice to enhance opportunities for contact and relationship-building in mixed classes.

We need to talk about managerialism: On the Importance of values dialogue and renewal within Catholic schools

Whilst reports of value tensions between new managerialism and Catholic education have emerged as a key theme in the academic literature there remains little empirical understanding of how teachers negotiate these complex terrains in Catholic schools. Drawing on qualitative data from teachers in two Catholic post-primary schools in Northern Ireland, this paper sought to explore how Catholic teachers developed a distinctively Catholic ethos against a culture of ‘creeping managerialism’. The paper has shown that despite the predominance of managerial practices, tensions between managerialist values and the ‘Catholic ethos’ did not emerge in either context: in one school managerialism permeated the school and the Catholic ethos was constructed within this context. In the other school a staff process of spiritual renewal had consolidated a commitment to the Catholic faith and social inclusion. It was argued that the dialogical engagement around Catholic values may help Catholic schools defend against the harsher manifestations of managerialism without compromising the pupils’ capacity to realise their academic potential