I met with The Supervisor for about an hour yesterday. It was to go through some notes he had made on two of the empirical chapters that I had written in August. He had some very nice things to say about my grasp of theory and my way of communicating my ideas. That is reassuring … More This stage
It is not as if people in these places wake up and say to themselves “that new measure that Maurice O’Doherty read on the news last night? That’s going to change things from today!” This is a really difficult narrative to employ when talking about changes to primary provision in Ireland or how a Change in religious practice occurs over time. … More What is change anyway?
If the highly-centralised Department lay the groundwork for educational policy, and it would appear that they only do so partially, the Catholics ordinarily resident in Portmarnock or Tramore could do themselves a favour by thinking about which box they tick for their ‘religion’ next April. … More Who are Ireland’s Catholics?
As a graduate student in UCD in the mid-1990s, part of the post-medieval patronage system that persisted was to correct summer undergraduate examination papers. This was a nice little earner leading into a time when regular teaching was unavailable to those of us not on any form of contract or tenure. As grad students we … More De-grading everyone
There’s an animated discussion taking place in the comments of Breda O’Brien’s latest Irish Times column. The comments point out the complexity of educational policy in a State committed to remaining ignorant of the rights of its inhabitants. Breda forces two surveys, the paper’s own recent opinion poll (61% of respondents do not want Catholic … More Polls and surveys
53 degrees 