Accommodating all applicants? School choice and the regulation of enrolment in Ireland

Abstract

The politics of access are a central issue when considering education as both a process and product of socio‐demographic stratification. This article undertakes a two‐fold investigation of school choice in Ireland, first using data gathered during 2009–2010 as part of the Galway Education Survey (GES) to examine school choice practices on the ground. We then localize these findings in the discursive context of three Department of Education and Skills documents—the Audit of School Enrolment Policies by the Regional Offices Service (2007), the Letter to Education Partners on Enrolment Audit Follow‐up (2008), and the Discussion Paper on a Regulatory Framework for School Enrolment (2011). The analysis highlights the inequality of access for migrant students that exists as a result of current school enrolment practice and discusses the potential for developing future arrangements that support inclusive, transparent, and fair enrolment policies.

The instrumentation of public subsidies for private schools: Different regulatory models with concurrent equity implications

“…This is the case in Ireland, where the increasing ethnic and religious diversity of the country has resulted in a debate regarding the capacity of private subsidized schools to prioritize the admission of Catholic students (Rougier and Honohan, 2014). A government report, released in 2011, warned that the regulation of admission processes had not been able to address the recent needs of a more diverse society and has led to the exclusion of certain ethnic groups (Ledwith and Reilly, 2013). Similarly, in England, the selection (and exclusion) of students on the basis of their religious beliefs, has also been a recurrent theme of debate, and has contributed directly to the problematization of school autonomy with regard to student admission (West et al, 2009).…”

“…In Belgium (Flemish and French-speaking communities), the assignment of school places is managed in a centralized way and relies on the common criteria of students' prioritization in the case of overdemand (Cantillon, 2011;Lambrechts and Geurts, 2008). Nevertheless, in the Netherlands and Ireland, both private subsidized schools and public schools enjoy autonomy to manage the process of admission, although only private subsidized schools are legally permitted to consider students' religious (and philosophical in the case of the Netherlands) beliefs as prioritization criteria in relation to applications (Ledwith and Reilly, 2013;Patrinos, 2013;Vermeulen, 2004).…”

Socio‐spatial strategies of school selection in a free parental choice context

“…Social networks are strongly classed and racialized, which implies that the "hot grape vine knowledge" (Ball & Vincent, 1998) used to assess school quality and atmosphere is often conducive to reproducing patterns of school segregation. Also, schools play a role in gatekeeping, in which working-class children and/or children of colour and/or of non-native backgrounds may not be accepted in their desired schools (Ledwith & Reilly, 2013;Reay et al, 2011).…”

Young Migrants’ Educational Achievement: Moving to Inequality in Galway City, Ireland

“…Thus, while all parents have the constitutional right to send their child to their school of choice (Department of Education 1998), the reality is much more restrictive. Therefore, it would seem that school choice itself is implicated in the production and maintenance of socioeconomic and achievement stratification (Ledwith and Reilly 2013a;Goldrick-Rab 2012;Wilkins 2011;Lauen 2009;Dobson 2008) (Table 5).…”

“…Thus, while masquerading as a progressive discourse of inclusion (Gray 2006), it does little more than allow the status quo to remain fundamentally unchallenged. Ledwith and Reilly (2013a) suggest that embedded within this status quo is a regime of power relations that enables Irish nationals to disproportionately occupy spaces of education, thereby producing a segregated and racialized social landscape (Kobayashi and Peake 2000). In such a landscape, Irishness falls into the background as a non-category (Dwyer and Jones 2000), with all others homogenized into a migrant community in need of a coherent policy response (Gray 2006).…”