Démarches d’éducation interculturelle et citoyenneté inclusive en République d’Irlande : avancées et limites dans les programmes, écoles et centres de formation

Abstract

In the late 1990s, partly as a result of the new phenomenon of immigration, the Irish state developed what it described as an intercultural approach within its education system, with the stated aim of building an inclusive school and society. This approach was supported and promoted by teacher organizations, and it took various forms, with significant changes in the fields of school history and citizenship education and with the publication of cross-curricular guidelines on intercultural education in 2005/2006. The present article offers a contextualized, critical analysis of this new direction regarding curriculum content. This study of education policy in theory and practice is based on content analysis of syllabi, guidelines, and position statements by main actors in the field of education in the context of the Irish education system and using fieldwork in schools and teacher training centers by sociologists of education who are most often involved in teacher training themselves. Some of these policy developments may be described as relatively radical in the Irish context as they clearly adopt an objective of social change, but inherent and contextual weaknesses and limitations reveal significant gaps between theory, discourse, and practice, from schools to teacher training centers.