Ireland's schooling population has significantly diversified in the last 15 years. Despite the growing body of research on migrant and minority ethnic students' experiences, we still know relatively little about their relationships with peers and teachers. This paper draws on data collected as part of a wider study, informed by critical race…

Initial teacher education (ITE) programmes in Ireland have seen continued high demand for places, reflecting high regard for the teaching profession. However, there is a dearth of diversity amongst Ireland's student teacher and teaching populations, with the vast majority of entrants to ITE being from majority ethnic groups and a high proportion…

Sense of belonging, or belongingness in academia, is an individual's personal conviction as to their acceptance as a valued member of an academic community. The importance of belongingness lies in correlations with motivation, persistence, mental health and well-being. Prior work has shown that belongingness can be lower in students who are…

In March 2020 when life as we know it changed, we adhered to a new set of rules and a new normal that COVID-19 imposed on not only the population of Ireland but on the entire world. Throughout this experience, the co-authors of this paper engaged in a series of phone, email, Zoom and WhatsApp conversations, reflecting on how their lives changed…

The homogeneity of the teaching profession is an international, as well as national, phenomenon. In an era of significant demographic change in schools and education policy development in Ireland and across Europe, the lack of solid data about the backgrounds of teachers and initial teacher education (ITE) applicants and entrants has hindered…

Over the last few decades there has been increased recognition that the concept of 'access' encompasses not only entry to higher education (HE) but also participation and successful completion. Despite this, very little research has been carried out in Ireland on non-traditional students' experience of university. This article explores the…

This publication focuses on some of the unique characteristics and challenges concerning the provision of education in prison, including: the emergence of an informal curriculum; language tuition in prison; access to higher education; the availability of library facilities; digital literacy; civic engagement and social (re)integration; and prison…

This report, authored by Graeme Atherton, examines how universities who are seen as leading internationally and/or in their own national contexts are supporting greater access and success for learners from low-income and other marginalised groups. What can English universities learn from global institutions? By looking at how they work with…

Despite all intentions in the course of the Bologna Process and decades of investment into improving the social dimension, results in many national and international studies show that inequity remains stubbornly persistent, and that inequity based on socio-economic status, parental education, gender, country-of-origin, rural background and more…

"Education Policy and Equal Education Opportunities," published by the Open Society Education Support Program, examines the role of public education in addressing a wide variety of unequal educational opportunities found across the world. The publication brings together analyses from countries in Europe and Asia (Albania, Bulgaria, Czech…

This paper examines the concept of institutional racism in Irish adult education. The study of institutional racism in education has been an area relatively untouched by Irish academics to date, and so represents a green field for interested academics and adult educators. For the purpose of providing some context for this concept, a brief outline…

This volume contains papers submitted to the 12th Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES), held in Sofia and Nessebar, Bulgaria, in June 2014, and papers submitted to the 2nd International Partner Conference, organized by the International Research Centre 'Scientific Cooperation,' Rostov-on-Don,…