Traveller Education

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 and what that meant for them as a teacher educator/project coordinator and student on the Tobar programme in Marino Institute of Education. Tobar is a Higher Education Authority funded initiative aimed at increasing participation in initial teacher education for members of the Travelling community.

Since the formation of the Irish State, the participation and attainment in education of members of the Irish Traveller community have been low. In terms of school-related factors, research points to Travellers perceiving the curriculum as irrelevant, experiencing problematic relationships with peers and teachers, a strong sense of not belonging, and low teacher expectations. This paper draws on the findings of a wider study which explored how an intercultural approach to education was conceptualised and enacted, with particular reference to Travellers, in one urban DEIS (disadvantaged) post-primary school in the West of Ireland (St. Greg's) with a highly diverse student population. Located in the interpretivist/constructivist paradigm, and informed by critical race theory, an in-depth qualitative case study research design was employed. Data collection involved twenty-eight semi-structured interviews with teacher and student participants, including Traveller and "other" minority ethnic students, as well as White settled Irish students. Data analysis involved several coding stages, and the development of categories. In this paper, we examine one of the categories, the participants' perceptions of the school as being a school "for the Travellers and the Blacks" and its "reputation" in this regard, as well as the factors impacting the "choice" of the school by different groups of students. Both teacher and student participants were aware of the school's negative reputation and how this was associated with the socio-demographic composition of its student population. Regarded as the school "for the Travellers and the Blacks", it was seen as a "tough" school and one in which academic expectations were low. Choosing St. Greg's was perceived as being related to having a family history of attending the school, not being able to access other schools, and the school providing supports and "freebies". The findings are discussed in the context of previous research, focusing in particular on critical issues of school socio-demographics, reputation, and choice. The paper concludes with observations about the problematic nature of Ireland's increasingly segregated schooling system and recommendations about how the education system might better work to include and support Traveller and other minority ethnic students in post-primary education.

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of Irish Traveller parents’ experiences of their own schooling, and their views on education. An indigenous minority ethnic group, Irish Travellers, historically and contemporaneously, have experienced disadvantage and exclusion in many domains, including education, health, housing, and employment.

This paper explores Traveller parents' involvement in Traveller preschools in Ireland. Travellers are a distinct cultural group who have experienced educational disadvantage. Against a backdrop of changing policy paradigms, Traveller preschools were established in the 1970s as a compensatory educational intervention. The study methodology was mainly qualitative, drawing on interpretivism, social constructivism and critical theory. Methods included document analysis, focus group and individual interviews, and a questionnaire survey. From a thematic analysis of the data, three overlapping themes emerged about Traveller parents' involvement in schools: how school culture facilitates parental involvement; parents' direct involvement in preschools; and parents' home-based activities supporting children's education and development. Travellers were extensively involved in various ways except formal decisionmaking. Traveller preschools were experienced as protected enclaves where parents felt welcome and accepted, and involved on an individual and familial level. This research highlights the importance of engaging in respectful ways with Traveller parents and acknowledging their educational involvement.

The formal recognition of Travellers as a distinct ethnic group by the Irish State in 2017 was arguably a significant step towards redressing the pernicious and endemic institutional racism and marginalisation that Travellers have historically experienced in Ireland. It was announced by the Irish Government in October 2018 that a review of the place of Travellers in existing school curricula would be undertaken, with a view to including Traveller history and culture at primary and post-primary levels. While there are benefits associated with curricular recognition, including its capacity to potentially disrupt the reiterative reproduction of institutional racism at a formal curricular level, a significant body of literature highlights the shortcomings associated with additive curricular approaches. These include tokenism and a failure to challenge dominant mainstream-centric perspectives and wider systemic inequities. The potential for curricular interventions to obscure or side-line critical consideration of the role of teachers' and student teachers' subjectivities, privileges and biases in perpetuating inequities is another dimension of this critique. This article draws on critical social justice literature, including tools from Critical Whiteness studies, to critically explore anti-Traveller racism and to analyse the tensions inherent in including Traveller culture and history in Irish primary and post-primary curricula.

This paper draws on exploratory research with Irish Traveller children. Using photographs taken by the children themselves to foreground both the 'good' things and 'things they would like to change' in their everyday lives, issues of family, home and, connectedness, love, and care emerged alongside deeply embedded (and embodied) experiences ofexclusion, surveillance and retraction in the children's interaction with the majority settled community. The paper conceptualises the children's representations and narratives (both performed and spoken) through the lens of care injustice. In so doing it presents a counter-narrative to deficit constructs of Traveller identity through the lens of Traveller children's voice, articulating not only the value of listening to children but also the power of visual methods in accessing their truths.