The Special Issue “Teachers as Researchers: A Cross-Border Collaboration on the Island of Ireland” features a selection of high-quality, practitioner-led research articles from SCoTENS projects. The articles in this Special Issue, covering a variety of topic areas and methodologies, with some focusing on the presentation of empirical findings and others taking a more reflective approach, offer insights for readers across the island of Ireland, and beyond.
For the full Special Issue, please click here.
For the editorial, the introduction, and the individual articles, please click on the relevant links below.
Showcasing Collaborative Research in Education Across the Island of Ireland (Editorial)
Aidan Clerkin, Vasiliki Pitsia, Emer Delaney, and Mary Lewis
This editorial focuses on the breadth of research described across the various contributions to this Special Issue. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
SCoTENS: Two Decades of Collaborative Research and Partnerships in Professional Learning (Introduction)
Maria Campbell and Gabrielle Nig Uidhir
This introduction presents detailed background on SCoTENS and the work of the network over the last two decades. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Back to the Future: Contemporary Lessons From a Century of Learning at Arellian, Ireland’s Oldest Nursery
Diane McClelland and Noel Purdy
This article emerges from a SCoTENS-funded research project, Contested Childhoods Across Borders and Boundaries (2019-2021), jointly conducted by Maynooth University and Stranmillis University College. It focuses on the origins, distinctiveness, and enduring relevance of the Arellian Nursery, the first nursery school in Ireland (North or South), which first opened its doors in 1928. Drawing on original sources and historical records, the article charts the establishment of Arellian as a philanthropic, privately sponsored venture in south Belfast, founded, from the outset, to address educational and social disadvantage and to promote outdoor learning, healthy lifestyles, pupil agency, and home-school links. Influenced by pioneers such as Grace Owen and Margaret McMillan, themselves disciples of Froebel, play, as a means of learning and development, was considered of great importance. While the founders and early superintendents of Arellian might have been seen as progressive, anti-establishment outliers, our contemporary context highlights the prescience and enduring relevance of the vision of Arellian almost a hundred years later. Active outdoor learning, healthy lifestyles, agentic learning, and home-school-community partnerships are becoming increasingly mainstream tenets throughout the Northern Irish education system. It is argued that, as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, important lessons can be learned for educators and teacher educators from the example of Arellian, Ireland’s very first nursery school. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Keeping Healthy Eating on the Menu? Primary-School Teachers’ Experiences of Teaching Healthy Eating in the Classroom on the Island of Ireland
Elaine Mooney, Eileen Kelly-Blakeney, and Amanda McCloat
In primary schools throughout the island of Ireland (IoI), the study of food, nutrition and healthy eating is an obligatory part of the curriculum, albeit that, in neither jurisdiction does it occupy a discrete space. Our previously published SCoTENS funded IoI study (Mooney et al., 2011) sought to elicit the views of primary-school teachers on the status of this area within the curriculum and their experiences of teaching the subject area. Questionnaires (n = 162) were completed by teachers and ten follow-up semi-structured teacher interviews were conducted. Results indicated that 75% of teachers rated the work on food education as very relevant to pupils’ lives. Most teachers (70%) employed a variety of active learning methodologies but fewer than half (48%) undertook practical food sessions due to a lack of resources. Only 8% of schools did not have a healthy-eating policy; teachers in other schools, however, highlighted that having such a policy served to consolidate learning on healthy eating in the classroom. The current paper considers findings from this study ten years on and highlights why the results from the 2011 study are as pertinent today as they were then. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
An Exploration of the Place of Children’s Literature in Early Reading Policy in the North and South of Ireland
Tara Concannon-Gibney and Geraldine Magennis
This article focuses on a recent SCoTENS (Standing Conference on Teacher Education in the North and South of Ireland) collaborative project on children’s literature within educational policy, in both the South of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It explores the place, profile, and prevalence given to children’s literature in key curriculum and policy documents on the teaching of reading in the early years. The article begins by considering the extent to which teachers in both jurisdictions are encouraged to use children’s literature when teaching early reading. It then discusses the availability of Continuing Professional Development to support teachers in this task. The findings of this desk-based exploratory study revealed implicit rather than explicit support for the use of children’s literature in early reading instruction at curriculum policy level in both jurisdictions, and were used to inform a cross-border teacher-education conference. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Unmasking Essential Irish-Medium Immersion-Specific Teacher Competences
Gabrielle Nig Uidhir and T. J. Ó Ceallaigh
Irish-medium education is designed to promote concurrent and systematic content and language development in the context of disciplinary instruction. Distinct from traditional content or language teaching, it requires a particular knowledge base and pedagogical skill set (Cammarata & Ó Ceallaigh, 2020; Mac Corraidh, 2008, 2021; Ó Ceallaigh & Ní Shéaghdha, 2017; Ó Duibhir, 2018). Yet, to date, few studies identify the immersion-specific competences called for in an Irish-medium (IM) educational setting. Although there is a growing recognition that IM teaching makes higher demands in terms of disciplinary expertise and knowledge (Cammarata & Ó Ceallaigh, 2020), what constitutes an ideal IM immersion knowledge base, and the values that underpin it, have yet to be well understood or clearly described (Ó Ceallaigh et al., 2019). The study described in this article set out to identify this ideal knowledge base, consisting of distinctive professional competences, considered essential to teachers in immersion education, from an IM teacher-informed perspective. Utilising an online questionnaire, a student-teacher symposium, interviews and focus-group interviews, data were collected from key stakeholders (n=78) represented among student teachers, practising teachers, principals, and initial teacher education providers across the continuum of IM education in Northern Ireland (NI) and in the Republic of Ireland (ROI). This article reports on the data generated from eight classroom teachers who took part in the larger study, identifies and considers a number of themes and associated competences that emerged from the data, and highlights implications for policy and practice. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Meaningful Methodologies in Initial Teacher Education Practicum Research
Melanie Ní Dhuinn, Julie Uí Choistealbha, Julie Hamilton, and Tandeep Kaur
Teacher-education programmes in Ireland and elsewhere have undergone multiple reforms in the recent past, informed by an orthodoxy that spotlights teacher education standards, inclusion, diversity, and social justice among other priorities. The preparation of student teachers (STs) to teach within this perpetually dynamic vista is both a challenge and an opportunity. School placement or practicum experiences present opportunities to conduct research for exploring how best to prepare STs to negotiate whatever “cultural flashpoints” present. The conundrum of which research methods to use within the practicum space, that is characterised by an intricate amalgam of stakeholders, ethical requirements, and teacher-education provision requirements, does not often feature in the literature, despite its import. This article is based on an action-research project undertaken by primary teacher educators in two higher-education institutes (HEIs) in Ireland, North and South. Highlighting the value of action research in the school-placement setting, the qualitative project generated a rich data tapestry from which key findings were extrapolated. Notably, for both teacher educators and STs, these included increased knowledge of research methods, and of how these can be applied to advance social-justice principles in primary-school classrooms, and greater appreciation of the ethical considerations required for both the conduct of research and the development of teacher professionalism. The use of visual strategies, by children who took part in the project, emerged as a successful communication medium in social-justice lessons, underlining the potential to achieve a more inclusive engagement by pupils in their own learning, both within, and possibly beyond, a social-justice knowledge domain. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Evaluating Professional Learning From Integrated Arts Education Practices in Initial Teacher Education
Michael Flannery, Mary Nugent, Frances Burgess, and Denise Elliot
Four teacher educators working in two higher-education institutes conducted a SCoTENS-funded self-study of possibilities and pitfalls of integrated arts practices in initial teacher education. Issues examined include most effective interdisciplinary methods, resolutions to issues encountered, professional development, and lived experiences. Using Guskey’s five levels of professional development evaluation model as a lens for critique, and the SCoTENS research report as a data source, this article describes the nature and quality of professional learning stemming from integrated arts education practices. Findings indicate that all five levels of professional development had progressed. De-privatisation of practice, reciprocal exchange, and shared knowledge co-creation resulted in enjoyable and fulfilling differences to practice regarding methodologies, collaboration, and reflexivity. Benefits to students included a superior learning experience, increased theoretical insight, a better learner-teacher relationship, and increased modelling of practice. Guskey’s model, though adequate in many respects, needed extending to account for the professional transformation experienced through engagement with integrated arts education practices and which encompassed other ways of perceiving, working, and being. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Teacher Wellbeing From Engaging With Educational Technologies (TWEET): Case Studies From Across the Island of Ireland
Samuel Taggart, Deirdre Butler, Don Passey, John Anderson, and Allison Campbell
Post COVID-19, the role of educational technologies continues to challenge many educators. There is a lacuna of evidence considering the potentially positive contribution to teacher wellbeing that may be made through effective management of digital technologies in schools by school principals and teachers. This research explores and develops the link between educational technologies and teacher wellbeing to test Passey’s (2021) conceptual framework and proposition, that effective or specific digital technological adoption in schools may benefit the wellbeing of teachers in a wide variety of educational contexts. Three post-primary schools (two in Northern Ireland and one in the Republic of Ireland) and three primary schools (one in Northern Ireland and two in the Republic of Ireland) were engaged to provide a study basis for critical in-depth case studies focused on teacher wellbeing and digital technology adoption and use. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with senior- and middle-school leaders and classroom teachers. Evidence from these case studies extends the research framework proposed by Passey (2021) by identifying additional circumstances and ways in which teachers perceive digital technologies as benefitting their wellbeing and pedagogical practices. Results suggest that teachers speak, with great readiness, on matters associated with the administrative aspects of their role, and with teaching or learning activities and outcomes, yet are considerably less likely to reflect upon and discuss matters linked to their physical, social, and emotional wellbeing. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
Comparing Approaches to Home-School Links on the Island of Ireland: The BUDDIES Study
Clíodhna Martin, Glenda Walsh, Seaneen Sloan, Jill Dunn, Ken Gibson, Karen Orr, and Franka Winter
Parental engagement in children’s learning can have beneficial effects on many areas of home and school life and is often cited as having a key role in children’s academic attainment. Whilst parental engagement is part of every teacher’s remit, there are different schemes and approaches in the two jurisdictions of the North and South of Ireland. This paper is based on a project that set out to gather key insights on two particular interventions – the Home School Community Liaison (HSCL) scheme in the South and the Parent Officer (PO) scheme in the North. In-depth qualitative case studies, which included questionnaires completed by school principals, were carried out in six schools across pre-school, primary, and post-primary levels. The findings highlight stark differences in policy between both jurisdictions, with the role of the HSCL coordinator clearly stipulated in relation to qualifications, duties and funding, compared to a more ad hoc system for the role of the PO. Participants across the case-study sites agreed on the unique skills and characteristics of the HSCL coordinator and PO and, despite the HSCL coordinator being a qualified teacher and the PO being a community worker, both roles were considered integral to tackling educational disadvantage and building partnerships. [DOWNLOAD PDF]
