Care-experienced Young People Accessing Higher Education in Ireland

While there has been considerable policy attention given to educational disadvantage in the Irish context in recent years, evidence on the educational experiences, attainment, and progression of young people with experience of living in alternative care settings (e.g. foster care, residential care) remains limited. International literature suggests that young people with such ‘care-experience’ typically have lower attainment and progress to higher education at lower rates than their majority population peers. This brief paper focuses on one of these issues, the question of how care-experienced young people in Ireland fare in accessing opportunities in higher education. It presents some very preliminary evidence from an initial analysis of a small data set related to care-experienced applicants to the Higher Education Access Route (HEAR) programme, a higher education access scheme that offers places on a reduced-points basis to school leavers under the age of 23 from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The findings highlight a number of features of the experience of this group in accessing higher education. In our conclusion, we argue that there is an urgent need to collect, and draw on, data related to the educational attainment and progress of both children in care and those who have left care in Ireland in order to effectively inform policy and practice and to demonstrate a commitment to understanding and addressing this issue

The Results of the StudentSurvey.ie Trends Over Time Research, 2016-2021.

Development and implementation of StudentSurvey.ie is driven by the intention to inform, support, and encourage enhancement discussions and activities throughout institutions, and to inform national policy. Nearly 235,000 first and final year undergraduate and taught postgraduate students responded to StudentSurvey.ie between 2016 and 2021. Over this time the national response rate increased to 31%. Part one of the results features six years of student feedback, from 2016 to 2021, using the same set of questions. The use of the same questions every year allows for comparison across the six years to explore change, if any, in students’ perception of their experience and engagement with their institution. Part two of the results draws on international results to consider how the results of StudentSurvey.ie from 2016 to 2019 compare with results on the same questions in a broad range of international contexts, including Australia , Chile, China, South Korea, South Africa, UK and the USA and Canada. The unprecedented change brought about by the COVID-19 global crisis cannot be overlooked. Feedback from a national survey over a number of years has enduring value in understanding the experience of students in higher education in Ireland and brings student voices to the heart of national policy and decision-making in Irish higher education

Acquiring an opaque gender system in Irish, an endangered indigenous language

An in-depth examination of the acquisition of grammatical gender has not previously been conducted for Irish, an endangered indigenous language now typically acquired simultaneously with English, or as L2. Children acquiring Irish must contend with the opacity of the Irish gender system and the plurifunctionality of the inflections used to mark it, while also experiencing early exposure to the majority language and variability in amount and consistency of adult input in Irish. Data were collected from 306 participants aged 6–13 years, including information on home language background which allowed children to be categorised as being from homes which were Irish-dominant, bilingual, or English-dominant. Novel measures of receptive and productive use of grammatical gender were developed to test children’s understanding and production of gender marking. A standard multiple regression conducted which accounted for 39.5% of the variance showed that language background was the strongest predictor of accuracy in marking grammatical gender assignment and agreement. The later stages of acquisition of semantic and grammatical gender have not previously been investigated in Irish, and the implications for researchers, policy makers, educators and parents are discussed.An Chomhairle um Oideachas Gaeltachta agus Gaelscolaíocht

Minority language ownership and authority: perspectives of native speakers and new speakers

The Irish language is a minority language undergoing the attenuation and accelerated change commonly seen as threatened languages come under increasing pressure from the dominant language. The decline of the numbers of traditional speakers and growing numbers of L2 speakers of Irish has given rise to some contested spaces regarding authenticity, accuracy and ownership of the language, as well as who has the right to produce and distribute the resources associated with/generated by the language. This study explored the attitudes and experiences of native and high-proficiency L2 speakers (‘new speakers’) of Irish with respect to these issues. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 Irish speakers, 7 young adult native speakers (four female, aged 18–26 years) and 10 young adult high-proficiency new speakers (six female, aged 19–31). Thematic Analysis showed a significant decline, in the view of both groups, in the confidence and authority of native speakers of Irish, and a change to a view among both groups that goodwill and commitment to the language's maintenance is more important than linguistic accuracy. The commonalities and differences between the native speaker and new speaker groups are explored, and the implications for the future of Irish are considered.An Chomhairle um Oideachas Gaeltachta agus Gaelscolaíocht

Assessing children’s proficiency in a minority language: Exploring the relationships between home language exposure, test performance and teacher and parent ratings of school-age Irish-English bilinguals

There can be significant diversity in the language experience of minority language children, and in the levels of proficiency reached. The declining numbers of children now exposed to Irish include those from homes where only/mainly Irish is spoken, those with only one Irish-speaking parent, and children from homes where one/both parent(s) speak ‘some Irish’, while levels of language use in the wider community also vary widely. The proficiency of children from Irish-speaking homes seems impressive compared with their L2 learner classmates, but still shows particular linguistic needs. Since acquisition of complex morphosyntactic features depends on both the quantity and quality of input, and extends well into the school years, assessing children’s performance on features such as grammatical gender may provide a useful index of need for language enrichment, even among young speakers judged by teachers and parents to be fluent. We report data from 306 Irish-speaking participants aged 6–13 years from a range of language backgrounds, most of whom live in Gaeltacht (officially designated Irish-speaking) areas. Information was collected from parents on children’s home language and new measures of receptive and productive use of grammatical gender marking in Irish were administered. Performance on these measures is compared with scores on standardised measures of Irish and English reading vocabulary, as well as teacher and parent ratings.An Chomhairle um Oideachas Gaeltachta & Gaelscolaiochta18 month embargo - A

Where Are the Goalposts? Generational Change in the Use of Grammatical Gender in Irish

The Irish language is an indigenous minority language undergoing accelerated convergence with English against a backdrop of declining intergenerational transmission, universal bilingualism, and exposure to large numbers of L2 speakers. Recent studies indicate that the interaction of complex morphosyntax and variable levels of consistent input result in some aspects of Irish grammar having a long trajectory of acquisition or not being fully acquired. Indeed, for the small group of children who are L1 speakers of Irish, identifying which “end point” of this trajectory is appropriate against which to assess these children’s acquisition of Irish is difficult. In this study, data were collected from 135 proficient adult speakers and 306 children (aged 6–13 years) living in Irish-speaking (Gaeltacht) communities, using specially designed measures of grammatical gender. The results show that both quality and quantity of input appear to impact on acquisition of this aspect of Irish morphosyntax: even the children acquiring Irish in homes where Irish is the dominant language showed poor performance on tests of grammatical gender marking, and the adult performance on these tests indicate that children in Irish-speaking communities are likely to be exposed to input showing significant grammatical variability in Irish gender marking. The implications of these results will be discussed in terms of language convergence, and the need for intensive support for mother-tongue speakers of Irish

Considering the impact of StudentSurvey.ie nationally and internationally after nine years of the survey

In this short article, the StudentSurvey.ie Steering Group offers some observations about the development of the Irish Survey of Student Engagement since its inception in 2012. The article also considers what impact means for StudentSurvey.ie, before discussing some of the ways in which the results of StudentSurvey.ie (and PGR StudentSurey.ie) have had impact nationally and internationally. One way is the inclusion of StudentSurvey.ie in national quality assurance reviews, which has highlighted some of the opportunities and challenges in demonstrating the impact of StudentSurvey.ie within participating institutions. The publication of this article coincides with the publication of the StudentSurvey.ie Trend Analysis Research 2016-2021, which is briefly discussed. Some final remarks are offered