‘That's how it works here’: The place of religion in publicly managed second‐level schools in Ireland (original) (raw)
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Byrne, G., Francis, L.: Religion and education: the voices of young people in Ireland
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Byrne and Leslie Francis, are co-authors of all three chapters in Part Three of the publication dealing with the very current topic of Religious Education and Religious Diversity, while Professor Francis is either first author or co-author on several other chapters in the volume. The focus of Part One is on what Professor Byrne in his introduction calls 'the Greer tradition' with its strong emphasis on the religious experience of young people from the perspectives of social psychology and psychology of religion. In 1968 John Greer, drawing on the approach of Alister Hardy, Edwin Cox, and the Religious Experience Research Unit, developed a survey of religion for use with sixth-form students in Protestant schools in Northern Ireland (NI). Rather uniquely, this survey has been replicated in NI over subsequent decades up until 2011 in both Catholic and Protestant schools and has been used in the Republic of Ireland. This considerable data set provides empirical evidence of the 'gradual decline of religious affiliation, belief and practice' as well as some significant differences between students in Protestant and Catholic schools on both sides of the Irish Border. Chapter 3 which involves a comparative study of Catholic young people in NI and the Republic of Ireland (RoI) using the Greer survey is of particular interest in the light of the differing cultural and political contexts of the two jurisdictions. While statistically significant differences were few, NI respondents exhibited higher levels of doctrinal religious beliefs and practice, possibly due to the backwash effects of the Troubles. The focus of Part Two, titled the Millennial Generation, is on school leavers from Catholic schools in the RoI with particular reference to faith-based identity, religious faith, moral values, religiosity, gender differences and parents' diminishing expectations of Catholic schools. School leavers in 65 of the 280 Catholic secondary schools in the RoI responded to various specially designed surveys. Some instruments drew on the work of Francis and