What does well-being mean to me?’. Conceptualisations of well-being in Irish Primary Schooling

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand the meaning of the term well-being as conceptualised by parents, grandparents, principals and teachers in the Irish primary education system.Design/methodology/approach: A hermeneutic phenomenological approach was adopted to understand the nature and meaning of the phenomenon of well-being. Interviews were carried out with 54 principals, teachers, parents and grandparents from a representative sample of primary schools in Ireland. Each participant was asked the same, open, question: ‘What does well-being mean to you?’. Responses were transcribed verbatim and analysed using a combination of the principles of the hermeneutic circle and Braun and Clarke’s framework for thematic analysis. Findings: Three conceptualisations of well-being were identified (1) well-being is about being happy, (2) well-being is about being healthy and safe, and (3) well-being is something you ‘do’. Originality/value: To the best of our knowledge this paper is the first of its kind to describe how well-being is conceptualised by adults in Irish primary school contexts. In particular it highlights how neoliberal conceptualisations of well-being as a ‘thing’, a commodity exchanged on assumptions of individualism, moralism and bio-economism, have crept into the education of our youngest citizens

Learning in a pandemic : primary school children’s emotional engagement with remote schooling during the Spring 2020 Covid-19 lockdown in Ireland

Open Access funding provided by the IReL Consortium. This study was funded by UK Research and Innovation-Economic and Social Research Council and the Irish Research Council under the ‘ESRC-IRC UK/Ireland Networking Grants’. The Children’s School Lives study, on which this analysis is based, is conducted by University College Dublin and funded by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment through a grant awarded to Dympna Devine, Jennifer Symonds, Senaeen Sloan, and Gabriela Martinez Sainz.The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the greatest disruption to children’s schooling in generations. This study analyses primary school children’s emotional engagement with remote schooling during the Spring 2020 lockdown in the Republic of Ireland, which involved one of the longest school closures among rich countries at the time. It investigates whether children’s engagement with their remote schooling varied by personal and family characteristics, using data from the Children’s School Lives (CSL) surveys. CSL is a nationally representative study of primary schools in Ireland, which collected information from children aged 8–9 years in May – August 2019 and in May – July 2020. Linear regression estimates with school fixed effects are based on the analytic sample of nearly 400 children (from across 71 schools) who took part in both waves and have complete data on all the key variables. Emotional engagement with schooling is measured using child-reported items on satisfaction with schooling. Everything else being equal, children who reported higher engagement with schooling before the pandemic were more engaged with remote schooling during the lockdown. Although there were no significant differences by family affluence, children with greater resources for home schooling reported higher levels of engagement. This includes having a computer or a laptop for schoolwork, having someone to help with schoolwork if the child is worried about falling behind, and having schoolwork checked by a teacher. This points to the paramount importance of adequate digital technologies in the home as well as the availability of help during periods of remote schooling.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Experiences of remote teaching and learning in Ireland during the Covid-19 pandemic (March–May 2020)

Initiated in 2018, Children’s School Lives is an exciting, longitudinal study following 4,000 children in 189 schools through their primary school years. Children’s lived experiences and voices are at the heart of this research. The report, Experiences of Remote Teaching and Learning in Ireland During the Covid-19 Pandemic (March – May 2020), is the second publication arising from the study and focuses on children’s experiences and those of their teachers, principals and families, during the period of school closures earlier this year. The report highlights the important role of education and primary schools in children’s and families’ lives. It also spotlights the centrality of relationships in primary education, those between children and their teacher, between teachers and parents, and relationships between teachers and school leaders. The rich, authentic voices throughout the report give us insights into the many challenges that emerged out of the need to reconfigure and reconceptualise teaching and learning in the context of a global pandemic. This saw primary schooling being relocated from a shared physical space, the classroom, to an online environment, necessitating enormous work, engagement and commitment by study participants—children, parents, teachers and school leaders—to enable teaching and learning to continue. The report also affords us glimpses of how this changed learning environment impacted, positively and negatively, on children, their families, teachers and school leaders.University College DublinNational Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA

Children's School Lives: Preschool to Primary School Transition

This report is focused on the transition from preschool to primary school. School transitions are one of six core thematic areas that CSL focuses on . The transition into primary school is a significant event not only in the lives of the children, but also their family. It is embedded in wider dynamics related to the personal, social, and cultural context of their lives, as well as the particular trajectory of children’s own emotional and cognitive development (NCCA, 2018). The focus of this report is to present some of the patterns evident in this key transition point from a range of perspectives. As such, the findings presented in this report draw on data generated with the CSL cohort in Junior Infants, as well as an additional sub-study (the ‘Preschool study’), undertaken in the summer term 2019 to explore the perspectives of parents, children and early years educators on the transition to primary school.National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA

Children's School Lives in Junior Infants

This report is the third in the series from Children’s School Lives, an innovative, longitudinal research study involving almost 4,000 children in 189 primary schools. One of the defining features of the study is the strong emphasis it places on listening to and learning directly from children about their experience of being in primary school in Ireland. This particular report introduces us to the youngest children in the study. The multiple perspectives gathered from the children themselves, their families, teachers and school principals, converge to provide us with a rich, detailed picture of the children’s first year in school. Uniquely, this period incorporates the months just prior to the arrival of the Coronavirus on Irish shores and the weeks immediately after the commencement of the first national lockdown in Spring 2020. Early childhood is a time of being and becoming, a time which provides important foundations for children’s learning and for life itself. We know from research that the first six years of a child’s life, their early childhood years, are particularly important for their holistic development. We also know from research that a positive transition from preschool to primary school is a predictor of children’s future success in terms of social, emotional and educational outcomes. Yet, despite this knowledge, relatively little research exists in the Irish context on children’s initial experiences in primary school. The Children’s School Lives study responds directly to this research gap by capturing, through multiple voices, comprehensive insights into the children’s initial weeks and months in their primary classrooms.National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA

'Value'ing children differently? Migrant children in education

This paper considers dilemmas around 'value' and the 'valuing' of children and childhood(s) in schools. I argue that in neo-liberal contexts, processes of children's identity making become aligned with the idea of the corporate citizen – value and worth derived from the capacity to produce, excel, self-regulate as well as consume in an ever expanding marketplace. Taking the positioning of migrant children as an exemplar, the paper explores the tensions in pedagogic practices between the valuing of migrant children and their 'added value' that is communicated through spheres of re/action in schools. The paper argues for education that is radical and strategic; careful and nurturing. In its absence, being valued differently involves reproducing negative patterns in a circular dialectical loop that naturalises under achievement of migrant children and other children at risk, to deficiencies in culture and identity

Practising leadership in newly multi-ethnic schools: tensions in the field?

This paper explores the leadership practices of three principals following a period of intensive immigration in Ireland. Drawing on the work of Bourdieu, it conceptualises schools as structured social spaces and of their leadership work as a form of practising. This practising is an outcome of the intersection between deeply embedded subjectivities operating in diverse fields of action that shape, constrain and transform each principal’s practices. Presenting an analytical model that highlights the circular and capillary-like dimension to such practising, the paper explores how principals’ recognition of immigrant children (their recognitive practices) as well as investment in supporting their learning (distributive practices) are shaped by the logics of practice across different fields, as well as by their own evolving habitus and struggle to be authentic in a period of rapid social change. Practising effective leadership in newly multi-ethnic schools must be conceived as layered and multiple but must be underpinned by an ethic of justice, if the minoritised status of 'ethnic' others is to be challenged and overcome

Mobilising capitals? Migrant children's negotiation of their everyday lives in school

This paper considers how first‐generation immigrant children contribute to processes of capital accumulation through their negotiation and positioning in Irish schools. Drawing on the concepts of social and cultural capital, as well as inter‐generational analyses of children's role in the structuring of everyday life, the paper highlights migrant children's strategic orientation to their primary schooling, positioning themselves in order to maximise the exchange value from their education. Social class, gender and ethnic/migrant status were identified as significant to the strategies adopted, and how children coped with their positioning as ethnic 'other' in school

Mobilising capitals? Migrant children\u27s negotiation of their everyday lives in school

This paper considers how first‐generation immigrant children contribute to processes of capital accumulation through their negotiation and positioning in Irish schools. Drawing on the concepts of social and cultural capital, as well as inter‐generational analyses of children\u27s role in the structuring of everyday life, the paper highlights migrant children\u27s strategic orientation to their primary schooling, positioning themselves in order to maximise the exchange value from their education. Social class, gender and ethnic/migrant status were identified as significant to the strategies adopted, and how children coped with their positioning as ethnic \u27other\u27 in school

Positioning Pedagogy - a matter of children's rights?

This paper foregrounds pedagogy in the realisation of children's rights to nondiscrimination and serving their best interests, as articulated in the UNCRC. Drawing on a mixed methodological study of teachers in 12 schools it does so through exploring teacher pedagogies in terms of how they 'think', 'do' and 'talk' pedagogy, conceived as their pedagogic 'habitus'. Findings confirm contradictions between teachers’ ideals and their practice that is significantly mediated by the socio-cultural context of their schools, gender and presence of migrant children. Especially striking is that neither social justice concerns nor children’s rights explicitly emerge in their narratives, in turn influencing how they 'do' pedagogy with different groups of children. This contradiction is understood as a dialectical process of re/action influenced by structures, policies and the exercise of power in local contexts. The UNCRC provides a generative mechanism within which to hold government to account for the impact of policies, especially in challenging contexts. To be realised in practice, however, it also needs to be embedded in teacher habitus, shaping their dispositions toward children’s rights to non-discrimination and serving their best interests in education