Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Despite an increase in ethnic diversity within the state, the Irish teaching workforce remains starkly mono-ethnic. This article is based on an analysis of data generated through a sequential explanatory mixed method research project involving questionnaire responses from 240 migrant teachers and subsequent focus group with a selection of teachers. Findings suggest that migrant teachers are slow to engage in the formal accreditation process, and face considerable challenges when they do. This reflects not only practical difficulties, but also narrow discourses of who can legitimately be recognised as a teacher in Ireland. This in turn is linked to cultural arbitraries highlighted through the research, such as a requirement to be able to teach through the Irish language in primary school and a requirement to be registered to teach in primary or post-primary schools only. In exploring these barriers, we draw broadly on Bourdieu and Passeron’s (1990) work, which understands teachers as pedagogic agents, imbued with pedagogic authority through formal processes of accreditation and selection. These processes involve the imposition of cultural arbitraries which legitimate certain languages, content or stances over others. Recommendations include revisions to the registration process to take previous teaching experience into account.

Keywords

Ireland migrant teachers misrecognition elimination

Introduction

The Republic of Ireland is one of the most globalised countries in the world (KOF, 2017). This factor, in addition to an increase in movement of people and a related expansion of the European Union (EU) has significantly increased ethnic diversity within the state over the last three decades. Most recent census data indicate that 18% of the population identify as something other than ‘White-Irish’ (CSO, 2017). Such diversity presents a strong contrast to the stark mono-ethnicity of the White Irish teaching workforce (Walsh and Mc Daid, 2019). This situation holds, despite a presence of migrant, multi-ethnic teachers in the state (CSO, 2016).

This article presents an analysis of the experiences of a selection of these migrant teachers as they attempt to continue to work as teachers following migration to Ireland. Data were generated through a sequential explanatory mixed method research project involving questionnaire responses from 240 migrant teachers. Further data were generated within focus groups with a selection of primary (FGTP) and post-primary (secondary) teachers (FGTPP). On the basis of the analysis of these data, we argue that, through narrow discourses of who can legitimately be recognised as a teacher in Ireland, migrant teachers are subjected to systematic and ongoing misrecognition. Such misrecognition reinforces and reproduces the extant homogeneity of the teaching workforce in Ireland. The next section of this article examines the literature on teacher migration in an international context. It establishes some of the main drivers of teacher migration and interrogates some of the difficulties experienced by migrant teachers as they attempt to teach in a jurisdiction other than the one in which they obtained their teaching qualification. Following this focus on the international context, we turn our attention to the situation in Ireland and examine the processes for registration as a teacher in Ireland, situating this material within a broader national concern with diversification of the Irish teaching workforce. Following an overview of the methodological approach to the study that underpins the article, we present the key findings from the work. These are organised along two key themes: the cultural arbitraries (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990) imposed through the registration process and how these are associated with the maintenance of a particular identity of a teacher in Ireland, and the (self-)elimination of prospective migrant teachers as a result of the registration process. The article concludes by calling for a more nuanced approach to the recognition of migrant teachers’ qualification, including increasing the value placed on their teaching experience in the registration process.

Teacher migration in the international space

Teaching is an increasingly mobile profession (Cho, 2010). This has been particularly prevalent over the past two decades when, according to Bense (2016: 38) ‘there has been a tremendous increase in teacher mobility and migration’. Analysis of data on migrating professionals in regulated professions across the EU and EEA, for example, reveals that between 2010 and 2019 only nurses and medical doctors ranked higher than secondary school teachers in terms of the number of decisions taken on the recognition of professional qualifications (EC, 2020). Certain countries have a long history of high levels of migrant teachers among their teaching workforce. Australia, for example, has seen overseas educated teachers constitute up to 20% of its total teaching workforce a number of times since the 1940s (Inglis and Phillips, 1995) and in 2006, 16.95% of all teachers in Australia, were born overseas (Collins and Reid, 2012). Over 50% of applicants for vacant teaching posts in New Zealand in 2008 undertook their initial teacher education (ITE) in other countries (Bartlett, 2014). These national data can often mask particularly stark within-country differences. In the United Kingdom (UK), for example, between 2015 and 2017, only 5% of secondary school teachers in the North West region were born outside the UK, compared to 32% of teachers in London (ONS, 2019). Even within London, however, migrant teachers are predominantly located in more socio-economically disadvantaged areas and are often recruited for hard-to-fill positions (Bartlett, 2014). Importantly, these teachers often play a key role in maintaining the education services within these areas.

Inward migration of teachers is often incidental, and follows the more general pattern of increased, and increasing, diffusion of migration associated with globalisation (Czaika and de Haas, 2015). In certain instances, however, countries specifically target the recruitment of migrant teachers. This is sometimes seen as a response to population growth and increased learner diversity, an issue that will be addressed in more detail below. At other times, however, such targeting is a deliberate policy response to global education trends or specific in-country developments. Since the mid-2000s, for example, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has recruited thousands of teachers from English speaking countries such as Australia, Ireland, Canada, the UK and New Zealand. This policy shift was driven by the move to deliver maths and science education through English-medium, rather than Arabic-medium instruction. It also coincided with sets of poorer learner results in International Student Assessments (specifically TIMMS and PISA) which spurred criticisms of the existing teaching workforce (Gallagher, 2019: 130).

While by no means universally, migrant teachers very often experience significant difficulties in pursuing their career in a new country. A review of the international literature and cross-disciplinary empirical work on international teacher mobility and migration undertaken by Bense (2016) provides a comprehensive outline of patterns of experiences globally. The review highlights the prevalence of migrant teachers only being able to access temporary working visas; lack of security of tenure or permanent positions; taking on positions in the private teaching sector with poorer terms and conditions of employment; and engaging in a considerable amount of unpaid and volunteer work in schools in the hope of securing a teaching position. The review further shows that when they find employment, these teachers often end up teaching in schools that are hard to staff – either because of where they are located geographically or because of poor student–staff relationships, including poor discipline.

The issue of the recognition of previous qualifications, or ‘re-credentialling’ (Beynon et al., 2004), emerges as a significant difficulty of migrant teachers in many jurisdictions. Proyer et al. (2019) identify that, in the absence of any general international curriculum ITE, individual states construct the rules for entering the profession according to their own specifications. Kostogriz and Peeler (2007) argue that a number of gatekeeping mechanisms ‘filter’ the inclusion of overseas-born teachers into the professional space. While gaining recognition of prior qualifications is relatively easy for some migrants in the UK (Miller, 2019), this is not generally the case. Outright rejection of previous qualifications, highly bureaucratic application and assessment processes, and the time and costs associated with applications and difficulties in passing language proficiency tests have all been identified as problematic for migrant teachers (Bense, 2016). Sharplin’s work on migrant teachers in Australia, for example, concluded that teachers with qualifications from countries other than New Zealand experienced difficulty with recognition of their qualifications and requirements to upgrade them (Sharplin, 2009). In the United States (US), Canada and Australia migrant teachers are often forced to begin part, or all of their training again (Niyubahwe et al., 2013). Liu, Dervin and Xu (2019) argue that Chinese migrant teachers in Finland feel disadvantaged because their qualifications are not recognised by the Finnish educational system.

Much of the literature pertaining to the experiences of migrant teachers is framed by reference to the learner populations in host countries. A substantial body of work, for example, demonstrates how teaching workforces in many countries are not representative of the ethnic diversity present in classrooms (EC, 2016; Feistritzer, 2011; Picower, 2009; Ryan et al., 2009; Schmidt and Schneider, 2016). This literature is often rooted in an examination of the negative experiences of minority ethnic and/or immigrant learners in these school systems. Georgi (2016) cites evidence of institutional discrimination, lack of competence when dealing with cultural differences, inadequate appreciation of and support for bilingualism, lower teacher expectations and inaccurate assessments of learner abilities in German schools. An absence of minority ethnic teachers is often identified as one of the contributing factors to these phenomena (Bireda and Chait, 2011; Boser, 2011; Cochran-Smith, 2004; Delpit, 1995; Goldhaber et al., 2015; Howard, 2006). Certain contributors reflect on the negative impact that majority ethnic teachers can have on these students. Bhopal, for example, argues that ‘many teachers from white backgrounds fail to recognise their own whiteness and their own white privilege and how this affects their teaching in the classroom’ (Bhopal, 2018: 76–77). This can lead to a series of deleterious effects, including a pathologisation of non-white groups, which measures black and minority ethnic identity against a superior whiteness.

A utilitarian solution is found in programmes which encourage diversity of representation in order to provide role models for migrant youth in our schools. There is a large body of work on this particular issue (see Atkins and Wilkins, 2013; Epstein and Kheimets, 2000). Critically, Rezai-Rashti and Martino (2009) posit that such ‘role modelling’ is a flawed conceptual framework grounded in reductionist and essentialist notions of racial and gender affiliation. They encourage a more sophisticated discussion about the need for greater presence and visibility of minority teachers, which is rooted in a commitment to eroding systemic inequalities as they relate to issues of access for qualified migrant teachers.

The Irish context

Most recent census data demonstrate that 18% of the population of Ireland self-identify as something other than ‘White-Irish’ (CSO, 2017). Increasing levels of immigration since the 1990s have considerably altered the ethnic profile of the population of children and young people in the state (Devine, 2011). Multi-ethnicity is now a fixed characteristic of learners in Irish schools. Children from immigrant backgrounds comprise at least 12% of the primary school and 10% of the secondary school population (Devine, 2017). Given that 24% of total births in Ireland in 2012 were to mothers who were themselves born outside of Ireland (Röder et al., 2014), it is projected that this proportion will continue to rise. While still under-researched, considerable academic interrogation of key elements of this development has been undertaken. This includes examining the experiences of refugee and asylum seeking children and young people (Darmody and Arnold, 2019; Fanning et al., 2001; Ní Raghallaigh and Gilligan, 2010; Vekic, 2003; White, 2012); teaching and learning English as an additional language (Nowlan, 2008; Wallen and Kelly-Holmes, 2006); home language maintenance (Connaughton-Crean and Ó Duibhir, 2017; Machowksa-Kosciak, 2017); racism and linguicism (Bryan, 2009, 2012; Devine, 2011; Kitching, 2010, 2011a, 2011b; Mc Daid, 2011); and religious diversity (Darmody and Smyth, 2018; Faas et al., 2020; Malone et al., 2020). Some further work has examined the impact that increasing diversity has on school communities and subsequent responses (McGorman and Sugrue, 2007; Smyth et al., 2009; Taguma et al., 2009).

There is a general concern that the teaching workforce in Ireland does not reflect the diversity of the wider population and, specifically, learner diversity (Coolahan, 2003; Drudy, 2006). Conway et al. (2009), for example, identified a lack of male student teachers in addition to those from lower socio-economic status backgrounds and other minority groups as an issue of concern. This lack of diversity is particularly stark in relation to minority ethnicity (Devine, 2013; Duffy, 2013; Leavy, 2005). Bryan (2010) cites Tracy’s (2000) use of the term ‘WHISCS’, or White, heterosexual, Irish-born, settled, and Catholic, and this is an appropriate characterisation of the Irish teaching workforce. There exist only two routes to diversify the teaching workforce: via entrants into ITE programmes within the state, and through recruitment of already qualified teachers from minority ethnic backgrounds. As yet, there is little evidence that either has impacted the narrow profile of the teaching workforce in any significant way.

With regard to ITE programmes, the Diversity in Initial Teacher Education (DITE) project in the National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway embarked on a longitudinal, mixed-methods study to explore the diversity profiles of applicants and entrants to ITE programmes in the state. Key contributions to the teacher diversity literature to emerge from the project include research on disability (Keane et al., 2018a); religious diversity (Heinz et al., 2018); sexualities (Heinz et al., 2017); socio-economic backgrounds (Keane and Heinz, 2015; Keane et al., 2018b) and, most relevant for this article, nationality and ethnicity (Keane and Heinz, 2016). This overall work has formed the basis of a series of recommendations as to the facilitation of entry to the teaching profession by under-represented groups. In 2017, the Higher Education Authority (HEA), the body with statutory responsibility for the governance and regulation of higher education institutions and the higher education system, established a Programme for Access to Higher Education (PATH). Strand 1 of this programme is devoted to ITE and aims to increase the number of students from under-represented groups entering teacher education. Funding of €2.7 million was allocated over a three-year period from 2017/18, distributed among each of the centres of ITE (Sahlberg, 2018), which had been recently restructured. PATH 1 funding was allocated to projects that targeted learners from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, students with a disability, and members of the Irish Traveller community. While it is too early to assess the impact of PATH-funded projects, some of these projects are reporting success, particularly for students experiencing socio-economic inequality, mature students and members of the Irish Traveller community (Keane et al., forthcoming).

Although the national plan does identify that some people from ethnic minorities experience difficulties participating in higher education, these were not included as a specific target group. As PATH aligned with this national plan, no specific targets were included to increase participation among immigrant minority ethnic groups within the state, though they could be included if they fell into certain other categories; such as socio-economic disadvantage, for example. In the absence of specific targets, the data relating to the nationality and ethnic diversity of applicants and entrants into ITE programmes (Keane and Heinz, 2016) provide little encouragement that ethnic diversification of the teacher workforce will emerge through the ITE route. In the DITE project’s examination of entrants into ITE programmes, 99% of entrants onto undergraduate programmes for primary teaching and 98.3% of entrants onto postgraduate programmes for post-primary teaching, self-identified as ‘White Irish’. The authors conclude that those of ‘White Irish’ ethnicity are significantly over-represented in Irish primary and post-primary ITE relative to both the general Irish population and entrants to Irish universities (Keane and Heinz, 2016: 518). In the context, however, of 37,341 primary teachers and 28,474 post-primary teachers working in Ireland in 2018 (DES, 2019), the tiny number of minority ethnic teachers coming into the workforce through ITE programmes every year, even if it were to increase to a representative proportion, would make an almost negligible impact on the ethnic homogeneity of that workforce.

On the basis of this work then, there is nothing to challenge the assertion that the Irish teaching workforce remains stubbornly mono-ethnic (Coolahan, 2003). Mc Daid and Walsh (2016) locate this homogeneity within a broader analysis of continuing politico-religious power struggles within the Irish education system, spurring ongoing concern with the calibre and character of those selected to teach, in particular, in the primary school sector. From a religious perspective, teachers could serve as instillers of religious loyalty (O’Brien, 2013), while historically the state saw that teachers could serve as agents of socialisation, positioned to play a key role in the reproduction of colonial values under the British Empire (Harford, 2009). In independent Ireland, this focus evolved to prioritising the resuscitation of the Irish language, which was seen as a core element of the broader building of Irish nationhood (Farren, 1995). This prioritisation guided entry requirements into the profession, both in terms of access to ITE colleges and for those who had trained in Britain and Northern Ireland. Mc Daid and Walsh (2016: 161) argue that these approaches narrowed the pool of potential entrants to the teaching profession. Leavy’s observation in 2005 that it seemed ‘unlikely that the Irish education system will experience the advantages of a culturally diverse teaching population’ (Leavy, 2005: 160) holds true, despite there being a considerable presence of migrant teachers in the country (ICI, 2008), and at a time of teacher shortage (O’Doherty and Harford, 2018). Contextually, it is important to understand that the global development of teacher mobility has impacted on Ireland. This is a relatively recent phenomenon, however, and is, for the most part, quite unidirectional; Irish qualified teachers have emigrated for work in substantial numbers over the last decade. Ostensibly, a stimulus for this emigration was a shortage of stable teaching positions and a reduction in the quality of pay and conditions for new entrant teachers in the public system in Ireland from 2011 onwards (Skerritt 2019: 576). Given that this is a relatively recent phenomenon, it is unclear whether most of those teachers will remain teaching outside of Ireland. It is notable, however, that despite the current teacher shortage, many of these teachers have not been enticed to return, despite specific government initiatives.

The unidirectionality of this migration runs counter to that experienced in other English language-dominant countries (Bense, 2016). In the early 2000s, Ireland experienced a particularly stark period of teacher shortage in primary schools. This was addressed by increasing the number of places available on ITE programmes, and the state also moved to recognise the qualifications of students graduating from a blended ITE postgraduate programme delivered by a private provider for the first time. Another significant contribution to the primary teacher numbers at this point came from Irish students who obtained a qualification in the UK, often attracted by the financial incentives offered by the UK government to encourage entrants into the teaching profession. These Irish teachers were then entitled to return to Ireland with the UK qualification and could enter the profession, subsequent to having their qualifications recognised by the Department of Education or, following the establishment of the Irish Teaching Council (ITC), by that regulatory body. These home-grown solutions run in stark comparison to a similar public service, ‘caring’ (Kittay, 2008) profession; nursing. Between 2000 and March 2009, 40% of all nurses newly registered in Ireland were from outside the EU, while up to 80% of the nursing staff in some Irish hospitals were identified as migrant at that time (Humphries et al., 2009).

Only teachers who are registered with ITC can be paid from public funds for their work as teachers in Ireland’s 3962 recognised primary and post-primary schools (DES, 2019). While registration is not always required in certain fee-charging private schools, there are very few positions available in these schools. Some public schools may also offer employment for suitable applicants for work that is privately funded, such as in additional language support, but these positions never provide the terms and condition of work associated with public sector positions. Thus, access to secure, full-time teaching positions in Ireland is regulated by registration with the ITC, which licenses teachers through qualification recognition (Conway and Murphy, 2013). All applications for teachers who qualify outside of Ireland are processed in line with the EU Directive 2005/36/EC. The qualifications of these teachers are assessed by the ITC to ensure they are of a comparable standard to those achieved by graduates of accredited ITE programmes in Ireland.

In order to have their qualifications assessed, applicants need to complete an application form and provide a letter from the relevant competent authority or ministry of education in the country of qualification indicating that the applicant is a fully qualified teacher in that country, having completed both a recognised programme of ITE and a period of induction if required. Official transcripts of results for all qualifications, evidencing all the modules studied in each year of the degree and the results awarded are also required, as well as module descriptors which provide details of the content of each module, which must also be certified by the qualifying institution. A certified English translation of all submitted documents which are not in English in the original must be provided. Where significant differences are identified between the registration requirements in Ireland and the applicant’s qualifications in the assessment process, conditions are applied to registration. Under the European Directive, the teacher must address any qualification ‘shortfalls’ identified in the process within three years. Failure to do so can lead to withdrawal of conditional registration. Applicants are also required to provide character references, evidence of English language proficiency and undergo police clearance both in Ireland and in any country they have lived in since the age of 18.

The numbers of teachers from immigrant backgrounds who have achieved registration through this process are very low. Between 2009 and 2014, of 17,234 new primary school teacher registrations, 2349 resulted from assessment of overseas qualifications. However, the vast majority of these were Irish teachers with qualifications obtained in the UK. Just 138 registrations, or less than 1%, were of teachers with qualifications obtained outside Ireland or the UK. Since evidence exists that there are educators among immigrants living in Ireland (ICI, 2008), the near absence of such teachers on the ITC register raises questions about the accessibility of registration to those education professionals.

Theoretical framework

Through Bourdieu and Passeron (1990), teachers are understood as pedagogic agents explicitly mandated to engage in pedagogic action. Pedagogic action is characterised as the imposition of a cultural arbitrary by an arbitrary power, theorised as a form of symbolic violence. Bourdieu’s theory of cultural reproduction highlights that dominant groups orchestrate symbolic violence to mediate and reproduce class-divided societies. In the context of education, this is achieved through the transmission of a selection of meanings which objectively define the culture of a group as a symbolic system. This selection of meanings, however, is arbitrary rather than based on any objective assessment of relative value.

Pedagogic authority is automatically conferred on every pedagogic agent by the traditionally and institutionally guaranteed position that they occupy; what Bourdieu and Passeron (1990: 63) describe as ‘a legitimacy . . . which is socially objectified and symbolized in the institutional procedures and rules defining his [sic] training, the diplomas which sanction it, and the legitimate conduct of the profession’. In the context of Ireland, this specific legitimacy is now founded on registration with the ITC. For migrant teachers, this follows an assessment of their qualifications obtained in another jurisdiction. Thus, the ITC is agentic in the selection, elimination and concealment of elimination under selection (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990: 154) of teachers.

According to Bourdieu, an examination is:

not only the clearest expression of academic values and of the educational system’s implicit choices: in imposing as worthy of university sanction a social definition of knowledge and the way to show it, it provides one of the most efficacious tools for the enterprise of inculcating the dominant culture and the value of that culture. (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990: 142)

Bourdieu (1977) argues that academic qualifications are to cultural capital what money is to economic capital. Academic qualifications have a fixed value that, because it is guaranteed by legislative frameworks, is unconstrained by ‘local limitations . . . and temporal fluctuations’ (Bourdieu, 1977: 187). Legislative frameworks define permanent positions as rooted in the possession of the academic qualification, rather than in the person themselves. Thus, these permanent positions may be occupied by agents who are biologically different but interchangeable in terms of the qualifications required. Importantly, the qualification thus ascribes a social status on the holder of the qualification and functions to conserve particular social groupings in the overall structure of society (Grenfell, 2007: 106). This is the theoretical framework within which data relating to the experiences of migrant teachers in accessing registration and employment in Ireland are analysed here.

Methodology

This study builds on previous research in the area of migrant teachers in Ireland (Mc Daid and Walsh, 2016; Schmidt and Mc Daid, 2015; Walsh and Mc Daid, 2019), but is the first to employ quantitative data to explore the profile of migrant teachers in Ireland, their experiences of seeking qualifications recognition and employment, and the perceptions of school employers in relation to migrant teachers.

The data upon which this article is based were generated through a sequential explanatory mixed method research project that recognises methods as an integral part of the entire research process (Creswell, 2009). Ethical permission for the research was obtained through the research ethics committee in the host institution. Mindful of the sample size and the potential for identification, participant confidentiality was ensured through careful attention to the treatment of contextual factors, such as country of birth, institute where ITE was undertaken or current location in Ireland. Quantitative data were generated through an online questionnaire of migrant teachers, hosted on Question Pro. The questionnaire comprised 63 questions in total and was divided into six sections: Background Information; Teaching Qualifications; Registering as a Teacher in Ireland; Seeking Employment as a Teacher in Ireland; Employment as a Teacher in Ireland; and Supports for Immigrant Internationally Educated Teachers in Ireland. The questionnaire included a range of open- and closed-ended questions, Likert scales and rating item questions (Denscombe, 2010). It took between 15 and 18 minutes to complete and was available through English language only. At the end of the questionnaire, participants were offered the possibility to submit contact details should they wish to participate further in the research. The survey was available for 12 weeks, between 8 March and 3 June 2018, and was promoted utilising traditional and social media, through migrant support and other community groups, as well as through complementary language schools.

Survey data were captured data from 240 participants. Subsequently, two focus groups were conducted to probe, in more depth, the perceptions of a subsample of teacher respondents. A further two focus groups were conducted to explore the perspectives of school employers, who were mostly school principals. The themes explored in the focus groups emerged from analysis of the questionnaire data. Key themes for the teacher focus groups (FGTP, primary teachers and FGTPP, post-primary teachers) included perceived gaps in own knowledge and skills, experiences with registration and self-identification as a teacher. The employer focus groups FGP (primary school employers) and FGPP (post-primary school employers) explored perceived gaps in the knowledge and skills of migrant teachers, experiences of recruiting migrant teachers and ways to encourage employers to recruit migrant teachers. These focus groups consisted of six (FGTP), eight (FGTPP), five (FGP) and four (FGPP) participants respectively. Individual participants within each focus group are identified through a number at the end, for example participant one in the primary teachers’ focus group is identified as FGTP1. Participants in FGTP and FGTPP had completed the questionnaire and had indicated a willingness to be further involved in the study by providing details at the end of the questionnaire. Purposive sampling was employed to recruit participants for FGP and FGPP. This article focuses primarily on the questionnaire and teacher focus group data in exploring teachers’ experiences of the process of teacher registration.

Focus groups are understood as a particularly important for ‘accessing the experiences and attitudes of marginalized and minority groups, including racial/ethnic minorities’ (Hesse-Biber and Leavy, 2010: 165). Both authors of this article co-facilitated all four focus groups. This was found to be particularly helpful in managing certain linguistic and knowledge barriers that emerged in the focus groups with the teachers, when recasting of language and subtle explanation of key terms was required. This is apparent, for example, in the following excerpt:

So she has been in it for two years now she has been teaching in primary school and the whole idea with the, not the waiting lists, what do they call it in the primary school? (FGTP5)

Enrolments? (Interviewer 1)

Through careful design with reference to data generated in the survey, but also maintaining flexibility, in order to allow research questions to shift and evolve throughout the process (Luttrell 2010), participants were empowered to discuss their experiences and perceptions of continuing their career as teachers in Ireland. Focus groups capitalise on communication between participants in order to generate data (Stalmeijer et al. 2014). The focus group format assisted participants to build upon the responses of other group members, with a view to eliciting more elaborated and considered accounts of experiences and perceptions (Wilkinson, 2004). This is seen in the following excerpt:

And my friend told me they have the Teaching Council in Ireland so I am interested in that so I just looked for that information on Google and then I prepared all of the documents. But the police station is hassle. (FTGPP3)

Can I just add something in there because we were talking about the [police] clearance as well. (FTGPP2)

Descriptive statistical analyses were undertaken with quantitative data generated through the online questionnaire. Interpretive phenomenological analyses (IPA) of the focus group and qualitative questionnaire data were undertaken, guided by the eight steps proposed by Palmer et al. (2010). IPA is more commonly employed to analyse data from in-depth single interviews, though it is increasingly being used across multiple data sources (Crawford, 2019). These analyses were triangulated with teacher survey data, employer focus group data and the extant literature to maximise validity. The motivations of the researchers to increase diversity in the teaching population were recognised and acknowledged throughout the design, data generation and analysis phases of the research. For example, at the introduction to each of the two focus groups with the employers and recruiters, one of the facilitators declared ‘we were granted this [funding] for two years; the first year is gathering information and part of the second year is putting together a bridging programme that would help some of these teachers make their way in [to the school system]’. A vigilant and hyper-reflexive approach (Hammersley and Atkinson 1995) is taken throughout the research process to ensure that data and conclusions are grounded in participants’ life experiences and take full account of their perspectives and contexts, and of their social relations and positioning.

Analysis and discussion

In analysis of the data from both the questionnaires and focus groups, two key themes emerge. The first of these relates to the cultural arbitraries (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990) imposed arising from the registration process and how these are associated with the maintenance of a particular identity of a teacher in Ireland. The second pertains to the (self-)elimination of prospective migrant teachers as a result of the registration process. The themes are discussed in this section.

Eighty-nine per cent of respondents to the questionnaire indicated that they held qualified teacher status (QTS), by responding positively to a question asking if they were a ‘certified or licensed teacher in a country other than Ireland’. These teachers were drawn from 47 different countries, with Spain (22%), Poland (18%) and India (6%) the top three countries of origin. Seventy-three per cent of teachers with QTS indicated that they had completed the required probation in the country where they obtained their teaching qualification, while 15% indicated they were not required to complete such a period before obtaining QTS. The open-ended data associated with this set of questions on the questionnaire reveal a wide variety of experiences relating to that certification. Some respondents reported clear examples of certification and associated work, for example: ‘I have Qualified Teacher Status. I was working in Lithuania, in Primary schools.’ Other respondents indicated that they have yet to fully complete all requirements for certification but that they were on track to do so, before emigrating to Ireland: ‘I have completed my college degree but not the state exam (that is done after a year of teaching)’. Some of the respondents identified that recognition as a teacher in their country of origin was not dependent on having undertaken a formal teaching qualification. One of the respondents who wrote about this on the questionnaire clearly understood the difference between the regulation of entry into the profession in the relevant region in India and in Ireland: ‘I would be able to teach in India with my PhD but not in Ireland.’

Of the respondents who indicated that they held QTS, 36% were qualified to teach at primary school level and 46% were qualified to teach at post-primary level. Eighteen per cent identified that they were qualified to teach across these two levels of schooling. One respondent clarified this on the questionnaire: ‘I am a primary and secondary school language teacher in the Polish educational system. Primary school in Poland means children 6–14, secondary school: 14–18.’ With regard to levels of education, 39% of respondents held a bachelor’s degree, 54% held a master’s degree, while 6% held a PhD or other doctoral degree. The primary teachers reported a mean number of 6 years’ teaching experience, while the mean for the post-primary teachers was 7.5 years. Forty per cent of respondents indicated that they had some form of educational management experience. Of this number, 19% reported experience of being a principal or head teacher, 17% as an assistant or deputy principal, 34% as either head of year group or head of a subject department, while 4% reported experience as a special needs coordinator.

These data paint a picture of a complex and diverse cohort of respondents. A high proportion of these teachers have a range of teaching and additional qualifications and possess a wealth of experience, as teachers and in education management and leadership roles. These teachers were legitimate teachers in other jurisdictions; for most, this is no longer the case in Ireland. Following Bourdieu and Passeron (1990), legitimacy as a teacher in Ireland is now, in the first instance, founded upon registration with ITC. Only 19% of respondents were registered; 11% with full registration and 8% who were registered with conditions and had to address some ‘shortfalls’ in their qualifications. These shortfalls typically relate to the Irish Language Requirement at primary level but can also require further studies focusing on specific age ranges (early years in primary, for example), or specific elements of curriculum (often music or drama education at primary level, or a particular aspect of literature for a post-primary modern foreign language teacher, for example). All teachers seeking registration at post-primary level must address a shortfall in the History and Structure of the Irish education system. Some respondents indicated strong frustration with a lack of information on how to address most of the shortfalls identified. One questionnaire respondent wrote:

No clear guidance on how you can make up the shortfalls. I contacted [named university in Ireland] . . . but still no guarantee that after spending over 2000 [euro] on the course, that the qualifications would be any good to register with the teaching council. Too much uncertainty with what the teaching council will accept.

Many other respondents felt exasperated with the requirement to provide evidence of what they understand as the granularity of their teaching qualifications, down to the content of modules, counted by the amount of hours spent on what they regard as a minor element of their programme. According to one teacher in the focus groups, ‘But for Spanish teaching, they ask you for books that you have read, it is ridiculous, it is quite ridiculous. Are you for real?’ (FGTPP1). For some teachers across both the questionnaire responses and the focus groups, the length of time since graduation meant that this posed a significant difficulty. One respondent on the questionnaire claimed:

I didn’t get all the information from my university because I graduated 21 years ago and some documents are missing – which is not my fault. They are still trying to find some of the documents from my 4th year but didn’t find it so far.

Teachers in the focus group spoke a lot about this specific issue, with one teacher from an African country noting how:

The university I did my qualification in doesn’t have the transcripts anymore or the modules. I still have the certificates to say I passed and I did my induction year and all the rest of it but they don’t have those transcripts anymore. So that has put a block or a barrier to progressing [my registration]. (FGTPP7)

Teachers who were previously recognised and had taught elsewhere in the EU found this process particularly troubling: ‘I was working in Poland as a teacher already, so my qualification was good enough and recognized by Polish Education Department to do the job for 7 years. I’ve documents from Poland to confirm this. Shouldn’t this be enough?’

In the words of one respondent: ‘the teaching council requirements are very narrow and focus on the Irish University system. Not only that; the requirements are very specific. Experience is not taken into account either’.

The assessment of qualifications by the ITC amounts to an examination which rewards a cultural arbitrary. Depths and ranges of experiences, and particular qualifications are deemed illegitimate in the context of preserving a specific view of teachers in Ireland, for example regarding the teaching of the Irish language or being specifically located within a primary or post-primary level. The experienced migrant principal teacher with a master’s level qualification finds it more difficult to be conferred with the title of ‘teacher’ in Ireland, than a newly qualified teacher (NQT), who has undertaken 24 weeks or equivalent of school placement (ITC, 2017) as part of their programme of ITE. ‘Temporal fluctuations’ in Ireland do not impact on the pedagogic authority conferred on Irish teachers once they have attained registration. Teachers who qualified through a two-year National Teacher (NT) programme, which was replaced by a three-year BEd programme in 1974, were still entitled to register as teachers following the move to a four-year BEd programme in 2011. Post-primary teachers who qualified via a one year Higher Diploma (EQF Level 6) programme continue to share the same registration status as their more recent colleagues who completed a two-year Professional Masters in Education (PME) (EQF Level 7). Migrant teachers who qualified less recently find it difficult to obtain the evidence required for registration from their home university. Furthermore, the ‘spatial fluctuations’ of migrant teachers have rendered as illegitimate that which was once legitimate; the pedagogic authority enjoyed by them in the country in which they obtained their teaching qualification has been removed. The requirement that primary teachers should be able to ‘teach the range of primary school curricular subjects through the medium of Irish’ (DES, 2000), the requirement that specialist post-primary teachers (such as guidance counsellors or special education teachers) register as subject teachers rather than specialist teachers, and the requirement that teachers register as either primary or post-primary teachers may all be understood as cultural arbitraries. The imposition of this cultural arbitrary by an arbitrary power amounts to a form of symbolic violence. The misrecognition of legitimate qualifications and extensive experience similarly amounts to a form of symbolic violence.

The second notable theme to emerge from the data relates to the large proportion of teachers who had never engaged with, or had ceased to engage with the process of registration. These teachers had essentially eliminated themselves from the competition that would enable them to continue working as teachers in their new country. The data from the questionnaire are quite stark in relation to this issue. Thirty four per cent of respondents indicated that they had enquired about ITC registration but had not commenced the process, while 9% had commenced the process but had not completed. For some of the respondents, delaying an application was a strategic decision; they were using the time to gather the relevant documentation before commencing a formal application. Other respondents, both those who had not commenced or those who were still in the process, highlighted actual difficulties with the registration process – or having heard about these difficulties – as the main reason for not engaging with the process or having stalled their application. Respondents identified how the process was ‘complicated’ and ‘frustrating’, that the translation of required documents was expensive, and/or that their home university could or would not help them with requests for documentation. Sixty-seven per cent of respondents described obtaining information from their own university as either ‘very difficult’ or ‘difficult’, while 65% described as ‘difficult’ or ‘very difficult’ obtaining the required information from the competent authority or ministry of education in the country where they obtained their teaching qualification. The frustration felt by many of the teachers is encapsulated by this questionnaire response by this teacher from a country in South America:

It is borderline impossible to register with a foreign degree. The Teaching Council demand certified copies of every course taken at university and proof you’re a certified teacher. The former is almost impossible to get. I can’t take time off to travel to [named country] and ask my university to certify the course contents for me. Expensive and ridiculous. The latter is not possible to get either. In [named country], you are automatically certified when you graduate. You don’t have an induction period or a letter saying you are certified. You simply have your diploma.

A significant number of the teachers complained about the financial costs associated both with the application for registration and subsequently addressing the shortfalls identified by the assessment process. One of the key observations was the costs associated with the certified translation of documents for the application. This has been addressed recently by the ITC in that they now accept documents which have been translated by teachers or other non-professional translators, so long as the translated version is certified by an accredited translator. With regard to the Irish language, there was much doubt surrounding the ability of the teachers to source appropriate programmes of study, and also concerns as to the costs involved. This was captured by one teacher who articulated that she finds languages ‘hard to learn and as a mom of two I am worried that I would end up spending a lot of money trying to learn it and still not be proficient in the required time’.

Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) argue that assessments function as selection mechanisms, which do far more than identify a candidate who is suitably disposed for a particular task. Assessments demonstrate the continued reproduction of particular knowledge and, concomitantly, the rejection of other knowledge and dispositions. This is achieved through elimination and self-elimination. The assessment of applications to the ITC can be considered as a form of examination. Over a third of respondents indicated that they had enquired about ITC registration but had not applied. For many of these, the decision not to engage with the ITC was based on perceptions that it was too difficult to pass this assessment; that they would fail. The knowledge base for these decisions was not always sound. There was a lot of evidence of problematic diffuse ‘knowledge’ that caused many prospective teachers to self-eliminate before properly engaging in the process. It is important to note, however, that this diffuse knowledge does play a role in information gathering by migrant teachers, and this is often gathered through the experience of other migrant teachers who had engaged with the process. As one participant in the teacher focus group mentioned, ‘so that is how we knew about teaching and we had friends and colleagues that were in the teaching profession in Ireland so knew a little bit about it’ (FGTPP3). A migrant teacher who encounters the frustration expressed by the South American teacher above may question whether it is worth attempting to register at all.

Conclusion

While it is well established that migrant teachers can face significant barriers to employment and recognition in countries where they settle, this article seeks to develop our understanding of the specific nature of those barriers in the Irish context, and how they relate to broader systems of reproduction which protect the legitimacy of dominant cultural groups, both within and through the education system. Drawing on the perspectives of teachers from immigrant backgrounds living in Ireland, our analysis points to two key ways in which these teachers experience the process of their recognition as teachers as problematic.

The first relates to the actual process of teacher registration, which requires teachers to invest considerable time and financial resources obtaining documents and presenting them in particular ways. For many, they do not possess the correct type of teacher qualification or their qualification is deemed to lack certain key components that either rules them out or demands rectification that is simply too far beyond what the teacher can afford to invest. In valuing certain types of ‘knowledge’ and qualifications over others, this process imposes cultural arbitraries, with the effect that a particular identity of ‘Irish teacher’ is preserved in a virtuous circle.

The second process identified in this research is that of elimination. One third of teacher respondents had not applied for registration, often as a result of the diffuse ‘knowledge’ that caused many prospective teachers to self-eliminate before properly engaging in the process. Based on these findings, we argue that the significant cultural capital of many migrant teachers, in terms of their teaching qualification and related knowledge and experience, becomes devalued in the process of registration. This happens in various ways, including the higher valuing of certain subjects and subject combinations which are particular to the Irish context, and amounts to a systematic misrecognition of migrant teachers in the Irish context. Although they take on a particular hue in the Irish context, the experiences of the migrant teachers in this study align strongly with the experiences of migrant teachers in other jurisdictions. In the context of the drive to diversify the Irish teaching workforce, a more nuanced approach to the recognition of migrant teachers’ qualifications is something worthy of consideration. These nuances should include a system of recognition of teaching experience from other jurisdictions, and the creation of space for teachers to register in specialised areas and across the primary/post-primary divide.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Irish Department of Justice and Equality’s Office for the Promotion of Migrant Integration.

ORCID iD

Rory Mc Daid

Author biographies

Rory Mc Daid is a lecturer in Sociology of Education and Coordinator of the Migrant Teacher Project in Marino Institute of Education. He is currently the Director of Research for the Institute and is the course leader for the Master in Education Studies (Intercultural Learning and Leadership). He is also a Visiting Research Fellow in CAVE, School of Education, Trinity College Dublin.

Emer Nowlan was the Research Project Officer with the Migrant Teacher Project in Marino Institute of Education from 2017 - 2019. She holds a PhD in the sociology of education from University College Dublin and is CEO of Educate Together, a network of equality-based primary and second-level schools in Ireland.

References

Atkins

Wilkins

(2013) Going beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic: The effects of teacher representation on teen pregnancy rates. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 23(4): 771–790.

Bartlett

(2014) Migrant Teachers: How American Schools Import Labor. Harvard: Harvard University Press.

Bense

(2016) International teacher mobility and migration: A review and synthesis of the current empirical research and literature. Educational Research Review 17: 37–49.

Beynon

Ilieva

Dichupa

(2004) Re-credentialling experiences of immigrant teachers: negotiating institutional structures, professional identities and pedagogy. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice 10(4): 429–444.

Bhopal

(2018) White Privilege: The Myth of a Post-racial Society. Bristol: Policy Press.

Bireda

Chait

(2011) Increasing Teacher Diversity: Strategies to Improve the Teacher Workforce. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress.

Boser

(2011) Teacher Diversity Matters: A State-by-State Analysis of Teachers of Color. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress.

Bourdieu

(1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bourdieu

Passeron

(1990) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (2nd edn). London: Sage.

10.

Bryan

(2009) Pedagogies of privilege: Re-thinking interculturalism and anti-racism in education. In: Drudy

(ed.) Education in Ireland: Challenge and Change. Dublin: Gill & MacMillan, pp. 226–240.

11.

Bryan

(2010) Corporate multiculturalism, diversity management, and positive interculturalism in Irish schools and society. Irish Educational Studies 29(3): 253–269.

12.

Bryan

(2012) ‘You’ve got to teach people that racism is wrong and then they won’t be racist’: Curricular representations and young people’s understandings of ‘race’ and racism. Journal of Curriculum Studies 44(5): 599–629.

13.

Cho

(2010) Qualifying as teacher: Immigrant teacher candidates’ counter stories. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy 100: 1–22.

14.

Cochran-Smith

(2004) Walking the Road: Race, Diversity, and Social Justice in Teacher Education. New York: Teachers’ College Press.

15.

Collins

Reid

(2012) Immigrant teachers in Australia. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 4(2): 38–61.

16.

Connaughton-Crean

Ó Duibhir

(2017) Home language maintenance and development among first generation migrant children in an Irish primary school: An investigation of attitudes. Journal of Home Language Research 1(2): 22–39.

17.

Conway

Murphy

(2013) A rising tide meets a perfect storm: New teacher accountabilities in teaching and teacher education in Ireland. Irish Education Studies 32(1): 11–36.

18.

Conway

Murphy

Rath

, et al. (2009) Learning to Teach and its Implications for the Continuum of Teacher Education: A Nine Country Cross-National Study. Maynooth: ITC.

19.

Coolahan

(2003) Attracting, Developing and Retaining Effective Teachers: Country Background Report for Ireland. Dublin: OECD Publishing.

20.

Crawford

(2019) Using interpretative phenomenological analysis in music education research: An authentic analysis system for investigating authentic learning and teaching practice. International Journal of Music Education 37(3): 454–475.

21.

Creswell

(2009) Research Design Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (3rd edn). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

22.

CSO (Central Statistics Office) (2016). Population and Migration Estimates: April 2016. Dublin: CSO.

23.

CSO (Central Statistics Office) (2017). Census 2016 Summary Results – Part 1. Dublin: CSO.

24.

Czaika

de Haas

(2015) The globalization of migration: Has the world become more migratory? International Migration Review 42(2): 283–323.

25.

Darmody

Arnold

(2019) Refugee children and young people in Ireland. In McBrien

(ed) Exploring Educational Policies and Practices in English-Speaking Countries of Refugee Resettlement. Rotterdam: Sense, pp. 199–219.

26.

Darmody

Smyth

(2018) Religion and primary school choice in Ireland: School institutional identities and student profile. Irish Educational Studies 37(1): 1–17.

27.

Delpit

(1995) Other People’s Children. New York: The New Press.

28.

Denscombe

(2010) The Good Research Guide for Small Scale Research Projects (4th edn). Buckingham: Open University Press.

29.

DES (Department of Education and Science) (2000) Circular 25/2000 Recognition of Teacher Qualifications for the Purposes of Teaching in National Schools. Dublin: DES.

30.

DES (Department of Education and Skills) (2019) Education Indicators for Ireland October 2019. Available at: www.education.ie/en/Publications/Statistics/Key-Statistics/education-indicators-for-ireland.pdf (accessed 12 February 2020).

31.

Devine

(2011) Immigration and Schooling in the Republic of Ireland: Making a Difference? Manchester: Manchester University Press.

32.

Devine

(2013) ‘Value’ing children differently? Migrant children in education. Children and Society 27(4): 282–294.

33.

Devine

(2017) Migrant children in urban schools in Ireland. In: Pink

Noblit

(eds) Second International Handbook of Urban Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Cham Springer, pp. 1103–1124.

34.

Drudy

(2006) Gender difference in entrance patterns and awards in initial teacher education. Irish Educational Studies 25(3): 259–273.

35.

Duffy

(2013) Practising intercultural education and cultural inclusiveness in the primary classroom: An Irish perspective. Irish Teachers’ Journal 1(1): 47–61.

36.

EC (European Commission) (2016) Study on the Diversity within the Teaching Profession with Particular Focus on Migrant and/or Minority Background. Brussels: EC.

37.

EC (European Commission) (2020) The EU Single Market: Regulated Professions Database. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/regprof/index.cfm (accessed 22 February 2020).

38.

Epstein

Kheimets

(2000) Cultural clash and educational diversity: Immigrant teachers’ efforts to rescue the education of immigrant children in Israel. International Studies in Sociology of Education 10(2): 191–210.

39.

Faas

Foster

Smith

(2020) Accommodating religious diversity in denominational and multi-belief settings: A cross-sectoral study of the role of religion in Irish primary schools. Educational Review 72(5): 606–616.

40.

Fanning

Veale

O’Connor

(2001) Beyond the Pale: Asylum Seeking Children and Social Exclusion in Ireland. Dublin: Irish Refugee Council.

41.

Farren

(1995) The Politics of Irish Education: 1920-1965. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies.

42.

Feistritzer

(2011) Profile of Teachers in the US, 2011. Washington, DC: National Centre for Education Information.

43.

Gallagher

(2019) Challenges and opportunities in sourcing, preparing and developing a teaching force for the UAE. In Gallagher

(ed.) Education in the United Arab Emirates: Innovation and Transformation. Singapore: Springer, pp. 127–146.

44.

Georgi

(2016) Self-efficacy of teachers with migrant background in Germany. In: Schmidt

Schneider

(eds) Diversifying the Teaching Force in Transnational Contexts: Critical Perspectives. Rotterdam: Springer, pp. 59–72.

45.

Goldhaber

Theobald

Tien

(2015) The theoretical and empirical arguments for diversifying the teacher workforce: A review of the evidence. CEDR Policy Brief No. 2015-9.

46.

Grenfell

(2007) Pierre Bourdieu: Education and Training. London: Continuum.

47.

Hammersley

Atkinson

(1995) Ethnography: Practices and Principles. New York: Routledge.

48.

Harford

(2009) The emergence of a national policy on teacher education in Ireland. Journal of Educational Administration and History 41(1): 45–56.

49.

Heinz

Keane

Davison

(2017) Sexualities of initial teacher education applicants in the Republic of Ireland: Addressing the hidden dimension of diversity in teaching. Journal of Education for Teaching 43(1): 99–116.

50.

Heinz

Davison

Keane

(2018) ‘I will do it but religion is a very personal thing’: Teacher education applicants’ attitudes towards teaching religion in Ireland. European Journal of Teacher Education 41(2): 232–245.

51.

Hesse-Biber

Leavy

(2010) The Practice of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

52.

Howard

(2006) We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know: White Teachers, Multiracial Schools (2nd edn). Columbia: Teachers’ College.

53.

Humphries

Brugha

McGee

(2009) Retaining Migrant Nurses in Ireland II. Nurse Migration Project Policy Brief 3. Dublin: Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

54.

ICI (Immigrant Council of Ireland) (2008) Getting on: From Migration to Integration. Chinese, Indian, Lithuanian and Nigerian Migrants’ Experiences in Ireland. Dublin: ICI.

55.

Inglis

Philips

(1995) Teachers in the Sun: the Impact of Immigrant Teachers on the Labour Force. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.

56.

ITC (Irish Teaching Council (2017) Initial Teacher Education: Criteria and Guidelines for Programme Providers. Maynooth: ITC.

57.

Keane

Heinz

(2015) Diversity in initial teacher education in Ireland: The socio-demographic backgrounds of postgraduate post-primary entrants in 2013 and 2014. Irish Educational Studies 34(3): 281–301.

58.

Keane

Heinz

(2016) Excavating an injustice? Nationality/ies, ethnicity/ies and experiences with diversity of initial teacher education applicants and entrants in Ireland in 2014. European Journal of Teacher Education 39(4): 507–527.

59.

Keane

Heinz

Eaton

(2018a) Fit(ness) to teach?: disability and initial Teacher education in the republic of Ireland. International Journal of Inclusive Education 22(8): 819–838.

60.

Keane

Heinz

Lynch

(2018b) ‘Working-class’ student teachers: Not being encouraged at school and impact on motivation to become a teacher. Education Research and Perspectives 45: 71–97.

61.

Keane

Heinz

Mc Daid

(forthcoming) Diversifying the Teaching Profession: Dimensions, Dilemmas, and Directions for the Future. Oxford: Routledge.

62.

Kitching

(2010) An excavation of the racialised politics of viability underpinning education policy in Ireland. Irish Educational Studies 29(3): 213–229.

63.

Kitching

(2011a) Interrogating the changing inequalities constituting ‘popular’ ‘deviant’ and ‘ordinary’ subjects of school/subculture in Ireland: New migrant student recognition, resistance and recuperation. Race Ethnicity and Education 14(3): 293–311.

64.

Kitching

(2011b) Taking responsibility for race inequality and the limitless acts required: Beyond ‘good/bad whites’ to the immeasurably whitened self. Power and Education 3(2): 164–178.

65.

Kittay

(2008) The global heart transplant and caring across national boundaries. The Southern Journal of Philosophy XLVI: 138–165.

66.

KOF (2017) KOF Index of Globalization, 2017. Available at: www.globalization.kof.ethz.ch (accessed 16 May 2019).

67.

Kostogriz

Peeler

(2007) Professional identity and pedagogical space: Negotiating difference in teacher workplaces. Teaching Education 18(2): 107–122.

68.

Leavy

(2005) ‘When I meet them I talk to them’: The challenges of diversity for preservice teacher education. Irish Educational Studies 24(2–3): 159–177.

69.

Liu

Dervin

(2019) ‘They Have It Better There’: Chinese Immigrant Teachers’ Beliefs, Ideologies and Imaginaries in Cross-National Comparisons. Frontiers of Education in China 14: 453–479.

70.

Luttrell

(ed.) (2010) Qualitative Educational Research: Readings in Reflexive Methodology and Transformative Practice. New York: Routledge.

71.

Mc Daid

(2011) GŁOS, VOCE, VOICE: Minority language children reflect on the recognition of their first languages in Irish primary schools. In: Darmody

Tyrrell

Song

(eds) The Changing Faces of Ireland: Exploring Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Children’s Experiences. Rotterdam: Sense, 17–33.

72.

Mc Daid

Walsh

(2016) Challenging the homogeneity of the elementary school teaching force in Ireland. In: Schmidt

Schneider

(eds) Diversifying the Teaching Force in Transnational Contexts: Critical Perspectives. Rotterdam: Sense, pp. 153–164.

73.

McGorman

Sugrue

(2007) Intercultural Education: Primary Challenges in Dublin 15. Dublin: Social Inclusion Unit of the DES.

74.

Machowksa-Kosciak

(2017) ‘To be like a home extension’: Challenges of language learning and language maintenance – Lessons from Polish-Irish Experience. Journal of Home Language Research 1(2): 82–104.

75.

Malone

O’Toole

Mullally

(2020) ‘The family project’: Investigating multi-belief learning in two Irish primary schools. British Journal of Religious Education 42(3). DOI: 10.1080/01416200.2020.1775069.

76.

Miller

(2019) Aspiration, career progression and overseas trained teachers in England. International Journal of Leadership in Education 22(1): 55–68.

77.

Ni Raghallaigh

Gilligan

(2010) Active survival in the lives of unaccompanied minors: Coping strategies, resilience, and the relevance of religion’. Child and Family Social Work 15(2): 226–237.

78.

Niyubahwe

Mukamurera

Jutras

(2013) Professional integration of immigrant teachers in the school system: A literature review. McGill Journal of Education/Revue des sciences de l’éducation de McGill 48(2): 279–296.

79.

Nowlan

(2008) Underneath the band-aid: Supporting bilingual students in Irish schools. Irish Educational Studies 27(3): 253–266.

80.

O’Brien

(2013) The 1825-6 commissioners of Irish education reports: Background and context. In: Fitzgerald

(ed.) Irish Primary Education in the Early Nineteenth Century: An Analysis of the First and Second Reports of the Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry, 1825–6. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1–44.

81.

O’Doherty

Harford

(2018) Teacher recruitment: Reflections from Ireland on the current crisis in teacher supply. European Journal of Teacher Education 41(5): 654–669.

82.

ONS (Office for National Statistics) (2019) International migration and the education sector – what does the current evidence show? Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/internationalmigrationandtheeducationsectorwhatdoesthecurrentevidenceshow (accessed 23 February 2020).

83.

Palmer

Larkin

de Visser

, et al. (2010) Developing an interpretive phenomenological approach to focus group data. Qualitative Research in Psychology 7: 99–121.

84.

Picower

(2009) The unexamined Whiteness of teaching: How White teachers maintain and enact dominant racial ideologies. Race Ethnicity and Education 12(2): 197–215.

85.

Proyer

Pellech

Kremsner

, et al. (2019) IO1 – Transnational Framework. Comparative analysis of the administrative frameworks on the (re-)qualification situation of internationally trained teachers in Austria, Germany and Sweden. In: Requalification of (recently) immigrated and refugee teachers in Europe. Available at https://blog.hf.uni-koeln.de/immigrated-and-refugee-teachers-requal/ (accessed 29 June 2021).

86.

Rezai-Rashti

Martino

(2009) Black male teachers as role models: Resisting the homogenizing impulse of gender and racial affiliation. American Educational Research Journal 47(1): 37–64.

87.

Röder

Ward

Frese

, et al. (2014) New Irish Families: A Profile of Second Generation Children and their Families. Dublin: Trinity College Dublin.

88.

Ryan

Pollock

Antonelli

(2009) Teacher Diversity in Canada: Leaky Pipelines, Bottlenecks, and Glass Ceilings. Canadian Journal of Education 32(3): 591–617.

89.

Sahlberg

(2018) The Structure of Teacher Education in Ireland: Review of Progress in Implementing Reform. Dublin: HEA.

90.

Schmidt

Mc Daid

(2015) Linguistic barriers among internationally educated teachers in Ireland and Canada: A critical comparative analysis. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 38(3): 172–183.

91.

Schmidt

Schneider

(eds) (2016) Diversifying the Teaching Force in Transnational Contexts: Critical Perspectives. Amsterdam: Springer.

92.

Sharplin

(2009) Bringing them in: The experiences of imported and overseas-qualified teachers. Australian Journal of Education 53(2): 192–206.

93.

Skerritt

(2019) Irish migrant teachers’ experiences and perceptions of autonomy and accountability in the English education system. Research Papers in Education 34(4): 1–28.

94.

Smyth

Darmody

McGinnity

, et al. (2009) Adapting to Diversity: Irish Schools and Newcomer Students. Dublin: ESRI.

95.

Stalmeijer

McNaughton

Van Mook

WNKA

(2014) Using focus groups in medical education research. AMEE Guide No. 91. Med Teach 36: 923–939.

96.

Taguma

Moonhee

Wurzburg

, et al. (2009) OECD Reviews of Migrant Education: Ireland, OECD Reviews of Migrant Education. Paris: OECD Publishing.

97.

Tracy

(2000) Racism and immigration in Ireland. MPhil Thesis, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

98.

Vekic

(2003) Unsettled Hope: Unaccompanied Minors in Ireland. From Understanding to Response. Dublin: Marino Institute of Education.

99.

Wallen

Kelly-Holmes

(2006) ‘I think they just think it’s going to go away at some stage’: Policy and practice in teaching English as an additional language in Irish primary schools. Language and Education 20(2): 141–161.

100.

Walsh

Mc Daid

(2019) Race discrimination and the management of ethnic diversity at work: The case of elementary teachers in Ireland. In: Vassilopoulou

Kyriakidou

Showunmi

, et al. (eds.) Race Discrimination and the Management of Ethnic Diversity at Work: European Countries’ Perspectives. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group, pp. 81–105.

101.

White

(2012) ‘Every Wednesday I am happy’: Childhoods in an Irish asylum centre. Population, Space and Place 18: 314–326.

102.

Wilkinson

(2004) Focus group research. In: Silverman

(ed.) Qualitative Research: Theory, Method, and Practice. London: Sage, pp. 177–199.

Barriers to recognition for migrant teachers in Ireland

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Teacher migration in the international space

The Irish context

Theoretical framework

Methodology

Analysis and discussion

Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Author biographies

References