The creation of culturally responsive school environments in Ireland: Factors that assist in reducing the gap between policy and practice

Abstract

Ireland’s cultural identity has transformed significantly in the past few decades as a result of large-scale inward migration. Consequently, the creation of culturally responsive school environments has become a major concern in policy discourses in recent years. Despite the prevalence of such discourses, research on the cultural responsiveness of the four major primary school types in Ireland, and what factors influence the gap between policy and practice across these school types has remained sparse. Addressing this lacuna in research, this exploratory multi-method study draws on data collected from teachers, principals, and parents. This study highlights several factors that assist students from culturally and religiously diverse backgrounds to develop a sense of school belonging and explores the challenges associated with implementing policies related to creating culturally responsive classrooms in Irish primary schools. This study holds international relevance as it highlights key factors facilitating schools’ response to the growing migration trend experienced throughout Europe.

Introduction

Questions regarding how to integrate students from migrant backgrounds have long been a concern for many countries in Europe. However, reports suggest that students from migrant backgrounds often fail to match the educational outcomes of their native peers, particularly first-generation immigrant students (Cathles et al., 2021). To understand why this gap in attainment persists, studies have explored the various efforts made across European countries to introduce culturally responsive policies and practices (Brown et al., 2022). Such studies have found that, despite several European countries adopting specific legislative frameworks for integrating students from migrant backgrounds, a gap remains between policy and practice (Brown et al., 2022). As such, there is an urgent need to understand the factors that may help in reducing this gap.

In Ireland, a similar pattern can be found. Indeed, despite the introduction of several government policies to support cultural inclusivity in the Irish educational system, such as the Equality Act (2005), National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) Intercultural Education in the Primary School, Intercultural Education Strategy (2010–2015) and others, reports have highlighted a misalignment between policy and practice (Adebayo and Heinz, 2023). Although previous studies in the Irish context have indicated that most migrant students adapt to the new educational system relatively quickly, following a brief transitional period (Smyth et al., 2013), the Irish educational landscape has, nevertheless, been criticised regarding its somewhat laboured response to cultural and religious diversity. It has been argued that the mostly denominational educational system in Ireland, not only limits parental school choice, but also does not adequately prepare students to interact with an increasingly pluralistic society (Faas et al., 2018). As such, there have been calls for all schools to be more culturally responsive.

Culturally responsive schools have been described as environments in which the diverse cultures within the classroom are drawn upon as a vehicle for learning and empowerment (Ladson-Billing, 1995). It has been reported that countries across Europe often fall short of creating such environments, and remain somewhat inadequate with regards to curriculum development, increasing the cultural heterogeneity of teachers and engaging parents and pupils in meaningful discourses concerning the educational environment (Brown et al., 2022). However, countries with a longer history of culturally responsive practices, such as the United States of America (USA) and Canada highlight the positive impact of culturally responsive teaching on students’ academic outcomes (Ensign, 2003) and developing their critical consciousness (Caingcoy, 2023). This underscores the necessity of developing robust school-wide strategies for the creation of culturally responsive school environments, particularly as international population movement accelerates.

In Ireland, discourses concerning the creation of such environments have advanced significantly due to the social transformation experienced over the past three decades. As a result of the economic boom in the mid-1990s, Ireland has experienced an upsurge in migration unparalleled in the country’s history. In 2021, 12.9% of the population were non-Irish nationals from some 200 countries (CSO, 2021). Consequently, Ireland has experienced a transformation in both its cultural and religious identity, which in turn has implications for Irish primary schools, most of which have a Catholic ethos. Allied to this, Ireland has also become more secular. This can be seen in the decline of those who identify themselves as members of an organised religion (CSO, 2022). Consequently, policy discourses concerning how to accommodate different cultures and religions have dominated educational debates in recent years.

The urgency to develop such policies becomes apparent when exploring the experience of migrant students within the Irish educational system. Studies have found that some migrant students in Ireland experience cumulative disadvantages in education (Darmody et al., 2014) and high rates of racism (McClure, 2020). Furthermore, some teachers adopt a ‘deficit racialised construction’ of ethnic minority students (Ni Dhuinn and Keane, 2021: 5). Limited proficiency in the language of the host country, for example, has sometimes been misconstrued by teachers as indicators of low academic ability (Darmody et al., 2014). While there is a gap in educational outcomes between native and migrant students, it varies between generation of migrants and subjects (Cathles et al., 2021). In an effort to integrate migrant students and support their learning, various governmental policies, such as the Intercultural Educational guidelines, have been introduced. These guidelines set out ways in which intercultural education can influence all areas of the curriculum. Considering the different linguistic backgrounds of many migrant students, additional English language tuition was made available by the Department of Education (Gardiner-Hyland, 2021). However, the economic downturn in 2008 saw many school-based supports reduced or changed. Since the 2012/2013 academic year, the Special Educational Needs (SEN) support and the language support has been amalgamated through the General Allocation Model as a result of monetary restrictions. This current model has been heavily criticised, with critics describing it as an ‘ad hoc, add on to SEN’ (Gardiner-Hyland, 2021: 178). This again, demonstrates a gap between policy rhetoric and practice.

However, it can be argued that the long-standing tension between policy and practice can best be observed when analysing the gap between parental demands for greater school choice and the predominantly denominational nature of the primary school sector. At present, 96% of all primary schools in Ireland are denominational, with 89% falling under a Catholic institutional ethos. As a response to parental demand, equality-based primary schools, such as Educate Together (ET) were established in the late 1970s, followed by the introduction of multi-denominational schools, such as Community National Schools (CNS) in more recent years. Presently, there are 96 ET primary schools and 28 CNS in Ireland, and with the formation of the Forum of Patronage and Pluralism, an expert group dedicated to developing a more inclusive educational landscape, there is currently a national ambition to grow the number of multi-denominational and equality-based schools significantly by 2030. Although these schools represent the fastest growing sector in the Irish educational system, ET and CNS still only represent a minority of all Irish primary schools and are not available in all geographical areas. Several factors have influenced this protracted development, namely, demands for change being concentrated only in certain areas of the country and that a family’s religious background may not necessarily correspond to their school choice (McGraw, 2023).

Furthermore, studies have also highlighted concerns regarding the imbalance between the greater cultural diversity among the student population and the largely monocultural teacher population (Heinz and Keane, 2015). The diversity gap between teachers and students in Irish schools has prompted efforts to increase the diversity of entrants into Initial Teacher Education (ITE). This can be seen in the National Plan for Equity of Access to Higher Education (2015–2019). However, critics have argued that despite such efforts, there remains an underrepresentation of minority religious groups, non-Irish entrants, and people with disabilities (Keane and Heinz, 2015).

This study, therefore, provides a timely analysis of the responsiveness of Irish primary schools to a more culturally diverse student body, with particular focus on the factors that can contribute to a discrepancy between national policy and practice in schools. Ireland serves as a particularly interesting case study as a new immigrant receiving country that possesses a relatively heterogeneous primary school landscape, in terms of different school types, compared to many other European countries. Although previous studies have explored different approaches schools in Ireland have taken to respond to diversity (Faas et al., 2018), this is the first empirical study to explore whether the different primary school types in both rural and urban Ireland differ in developing culturally responsive classroom environments and what factors may contribute to a discrepancy between policy and practice. This study holds international relevance as it captures the features of teaching and school leadership that support migrant students in adapting to educational settings and identifies what factors may impede this integration.

This article, therefore, will explore the following questions: (1) What are the factors that assist schools in developing a culturally responsive environment? (2) What are the barriers to developing culturally responsive environments? (3) What factors lead to a discrepancy between policy and practice? To explore these questions, this article will begin by outlining the conceptual framework that will guide this research, followed by an overview of the methodology. Finally, the results of the study will be presented, before arriving at the conclusion.

Conceptual framework

As a result of upward trends in migration, educators in countries around the globe have been learning how to create culturally responsive environments. Consequently, several educational frameworks have emerged over the years. Banks’ Multicultural Education is one such framework that gained considerable attention since its introduction in the USA in the late 1960s. Multicultural education adopts the notion of ‘e pluribus unum – out of the many, one’ (Banks, 1993: 24). Of course, debates have occurred over the years regarding how the ‘one’ is understood, and thus achieved. Indeed, many efforts that strive to accommodate diverse religions and cultures adopt narrow assumptions of cohesion based on assimilation, where the diverse ethnic and religious groups are expected to adopt the norms of the majority culture or religion (Banks, 1993). Multicultural education, however, challenges these assumptions and holds to the conviction that unity is achieved by means of consultations and negotiations so that the classroom environment is reconstructed to reflect the diverse groups (Banks, 1993).

However, critics have highlighted that the tendency to oversimplify and the lack of conceptual clarity regarding how to implement educational frameworks (Goodwin, 1990), prohibits frameworks, such as multicultural education, from being implemented with fidelity. Indeed, critics have warned that culturally responsive policies are often ‘high on aspiration but low on implementation details’ (Smith et al., 2023: 4). Furthermore, amongst the challenges in accommodating a diversity of cultures is arriving at precisely what is meant by culture and, therefore, how to respond appropriately. It has been argued that ambiguity persists as cultural groups are ‘internally heterogenous and contain individuals who adhere to a range of diverse beliefs and practices’ (OECD, 2016: 8). This fluidity of cultural identity and the heterogeneity of cultural experience must be acknowledged by educators (Ladson-Billing, 2014). Brown et al. (2022: 583) argue that cultural responsivity is not a process of definitively linking ‘a person to a given version of culture, but rather materialises as preparedness to attend to different expressions of needs and to reflect one’s own ways of coping with situations of difference’. Indeed, critics have warned that in the absence of garnering accurate and nuanced knowledge regarding specific cultures, stereotypical perceptions can develop amongst educators (Takafor Ndemanu and Jordan, 2018). Therefore, efforts to ensure educators are responsive to the varying needs of students have given impetus to the development of the concept of a Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP).

Ladson-Billings (1995) identified three main elements which constitute CRP: high academic expectations; reshaping the curriculum in order to build on students’ knowledge and understanding, while maintaining a strong dialogue and relationship between home and school; and enhancing students’ critical consciousness with regards to power relationships. In failing to address these elements, tension can emerge between what is taught at home and the cultural norms embedded in Irish education (Adebayo and Heinz, 2023). Therefore, the development of democratic decision-making processes that draw heavily on both student and parent voices is an urgent requirement in all educational settings. A recent study conducted by Adebayo and Heinz (2023: 15) highlighted the need to include the voices of marginalised groups, as parents from culturally diverse backgrounds are ‘uniquely positioned to support the development of intercultural competencies and inclusive education practices’.

Developing a sense of school belonging is a primary goal for culturally responsive school leaders. Gay (2010) highlights the critical role school leaders play in the student integration process. Furthermore, Riley (2022: 115) argues that ‘leadership values shape action and leadership action shapes belonging’. However, Khalifa (2018) found that white, westernised epistemologies have shaped how we understand school leadership, which consequently puts minority students at a disadvantage. Drawing on Bourdieusian theory, Darmody (2011: 226) suggests that educators possess symbolic power, particularly in relation to culture, and thus reward students ‘who closely align with the “institutional habitus” of the school’. This demonstrates the challenges of developing a culturally responsive classroom. Indeed, Ladson-Billings (1995, 2019) has been critical of recent efforts to adopt culturally responsive practices into schools, arguing that reductive interpretations of CRP, not grounded in theory, have hampered its full evolution. In pursuit of developing culturally responsive classrooms, Ladson-Billings (2019) asserted in a recent interview, that educators must understand that they are operating within an inequitable system and therefore, their responsibility lies not just in assisting students to fit within the system, but rather, they must assist their students to develop the tools, skills, and knowledge to tackle such inequities and be agents of change. In failing to understand such nuances, educators become passive agents perpetuating traditional forms of education that exacerbate inequity. Therefore, further research is required to address the gaps between policies that seek to develop a more culturally responsive educational landscape.

Methodology

This study deployed an exploratory multi-method, comparative case study design across eight primary schools in Ireland. Overall, the study sampled 37 participants, including 15 teachers (14 females and 1 male: 14 Irish native and 1 non-Irish native), 16 parents (15 female and 1 male: 7 Irish native – 9 non-Irish native), and six school principals (five females – 1 male: 5 Irish native – 1 non-Irish native). Cases were selected from the four main primary school types in Ireland; Catholic, Church of Ireland (COI), ET and CNS. Although Irish speaking schools, Gaelscoileanna, represent a major sector within the Irish education system, they were excluded from the sample due to the variability in their religious ethos. Furthermore, this study differentiated between rural and urban areas in order to explore whether school location influenced the adoption of culturally responsive approaches in schools.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with parents of students within each school. Interviews with parents focussed on their impressions of how inclusive they found the school and to what extent they collaborate with the school staff. Furthermore, in-depth semi-structured interviews were also conducted with one teacher from 5th class in each school and one other teacher from the school. 5th class is the penultimate year of primary school, and teachers were selected from this class as it was felt that students around 10–11 years old would have more questions regarding cultural and religious identity than their younger peers. The purpose of the interviews was to explore what culturally responsive practices were taking place in the school, how teachers are supported to respond to cultural and religious diversity, and what barriers prevented teachers from responding effectively. A limitation of this method of sampling was that parents and teachers were initially contacted through the school. Therefore, there may have been selection bias and parents who had a more favourable impression of the school may have been chosen.

Finally, surveys were conducted with the school principals. The purpose of the survey was to provide general information about the characteristics of the school (school size, demographics of student population, and policies and procedures adopted by the school) and give principals an opportunity to respond to open-ended questions regarding culturally responsive practices occurring within their school. Prior to the data collection, all participants provided informed consent to be involved in the research project. Anonymity was ensured by using pseudonyms.

Once the data collection process was complete, the qualitative data collected was analysed by deploying a thematic analysis framework. This approach, first pioneered by Braun and Clarke (2006), adopts a six-phase framework. These are, familiarisation, coding, search for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes and the writing up phase (Braun and Clarke, 2006). This method of data analysis was adopted for the semi-structured interviews. The quantitative data in this project was analysed with SPSS software. Here, patterns were identified and used as baseline data to complement the qualitative findings.

Findings and discussion

The importance of ethos

The gap between national policy and practice can best be observed by analysing the protracted development in creating an educational landscape that reflects parental demand for more varied provision. This study found that teachers and school leaders across all school types made substantial efforts to accommodate students from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. However, a sharp distinction was observed between schools that adopt an ethos that is specifically tailored to cater to the diverse student body and schools that adopt an ethos that, although stated to be inclusive (CPSMA, 2023) and encourage and celebrate diversity (Church of Ireland General Synod Board of Education, 2011), are tailored for the purpose of developing an identity based on a religious ethos.

This study found that in CNS and ET schools the ethos strives to promote a fully inclusive education that recognises the plurality of identities held by students, parents, and staff. Consequently, there is an expectation on teachers and school leaders to create environments that respond to the diversity of society. Furthermore, programmes such as Goodness Me Goodness You (GMGY) in CNS and Learn Together in ET schools are value-based education curricula that enable students to learn about a variety of religions and cultures. Such curricula replace the traditional Religious Education (RE) classes found in denominational schools in which students learn-in religion and the ethos tends to privilege the teachings of one religion in particular. When exploring how students from diverse cultures and religions are accommodated, teachers from both CNS and ET schools, observed that such practices are firmly embedded within the climate of the school:

…it’s definitely the climate in the school. Like you can have as many frameworks as you want, but if… your school doesn’t have the vibe of an inclusive school, you're not going to get anywhere… Like the community, literally in the name of our school, it’s community national school.

Teacher Rural CNS (Irish Native)

Here, the teacher asserts that regardless of the approaches a school adopts, if inclusivity is not rooted at the core of the school ethos, children will inevitably feel excluded to some extent. For example, one principal from an urban ET primary school noted that the ‘diversity of culture and religious beliefs (and more) is what makes our school what it is. We do not require any special adaptations to accommodate any particular family’. In denominational schools, however, particularly those in urban settings, teachers are entrusted with the responsibility of both implementing a curriculum that gives precedence to a certain religion while accommodating an increasingly religiously and culturally diverse classroom. Although such curricula may not explicitly offer time for learning about the various religions and cultures present within the classroom, teachers can be proactive and respond to the needs of the class, by making slight adjustments to their teaching approaches. One urban, Catholic school teacher (Irish native) highlighted several ways in which they accommodate students from diverse backgrounds:

…we do things…spontaneously… I feel that that’s more beneficial than for me to you know have a sole lesson on it… Other ways is through religion. We have a variety of children… with different religious backgrounds…we used to classify those as ‘they just don’'t do religion.’ So, we have to give them busy work …I don’t know how beneficial that is for them…I either have those children doing… a side project, maybe on a…person…famous from their own religion, or they can do a project on their own religion.

Although the teacher here demonstrates sensitivity to the different needs of the students within the classroom, there are clear structural limitations that impact a child’s inclusion. In this Christian-centric model of education, students from Christian backgrounds are privileged, while those who practise other religions or none, are inadvertently treated as the ‘other’. In Ireland, an opt-out option is available to parents who do not want their child to be exposed to religious instruction. However, the freedom to opt-out is accompanied by various challenges, namely, schools lacking sufficient resources to meaningfully accommodate those students who wish to opt-out (Darmody et al., 2014). Furthermore, when schools adopt a reactive as opposed to proactive approach to developing cultural literacy in their students, two major challenges arise. On the one hand, if careful planning and training for teachers is not deployed, it can be challenging for teachers to navigate sensitive, complex questions around cultural and religious identity. On the other hand, when conversations concerning diversity are a response to the degree to which cultural diversity is present, questions arise regarding what happens in classrooms that are more culturally homogenous. For example, in this study, the classroom composition in rural denominational schools was much less religiously and culturally heterogeneous. It can be argued that students in these classrooms may be at a disadvantage in developing essential tools to assist them in interacting with a multicultural society if these topics are not introduced by teachers. In ET and CNS, however, there is a conscious focus on developing tools for young people that will serve them in a pluralistic society. For example, one teacher (Irish native) in a rural CNS shared the importance of instructing students to use ‘appropriate language’ and develop certain attitudes for interacting with diversity:

…another huge aspect of the curriculum is teaching children…appropriate language and respect for others and to be able to discuss differences in beliefs, but to do it in a really respectful and kind of a meaningful way so that it's not something that you don’t talk about. That we’re different because we are different. So, it’s like acknowledging difference. And it’s teaching the kids how to talk about that…

The findings of this study show that the institutional ethos of a school can determine the extent to which children from migrant families feel a sense of school belonging and all students develop their religious and cultural literacy. Multi-denominational and equality-based schools, for example, were less bound by structural limitations found in denominational schools. Therefore, the findings highlight the necessity of achieving the Government’s goal of increasing the number of multi-denominational primary schools to respond to the needs of parents and provide wider choice for parents and for denominational schools to adopt more ways in which to accommodate migrant parents and their children. Failing this, it is difficult to see how policies, such as those outlined in the Education Act (1998) that suggest that each student should receive an educational experience that ‘respects the diversity of values, beliefs, languages and traditions in Irish society’ can be achieved.

Developing culturally responsive school environments: The role of teachers and principals

This study found that both teachers and school principals play a vital role in creating and maintaining inclusive learning environments. Encouraging migrant students’ use of their native language, acknowledging and celebrating various cultural and religious festivals, learning about specific cultures and religions in classes, integrating cultural and religious themes throughout the school day, displaying artwork that depict the various religions and cultures within the classroom and adopting a curious and open-minded approach to learning about different religions and cultures were all steps implemented by school principals and teachers to enhance the inclusivity of the school environment. This study, however, found that teachers encounter several challenges in their efforts to enhance students’ cultural and religious literacy. Several teachers highlighted time-constraints due to pressures such as curriculum demands but also the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Teachers noted that, in light of such pressures, subjects such as religion and ethical education are often sacrificed. Emphasis on core subjects, such as Maths and English, is the hallmark of an education system embedded in neoliberal values (Lynch and McGarr, 2016). Narrow conceptions of education primarily serving economic purposes, ensures subjects, such as, ethical and RE, that have a potential for wider personal development, remain peripheral. Therefore, an institutional ethos based on inclusion is not always sufficient in enhancing school belonging for students from diverse backgrounds, but efforts to challenge the neoliberal and Eurocentric assumptions regarding education must also be addressed. Continuous Professional Development (CPD) is essential to ensure teachers can navigate the complexities of identity and assumptions regarding the role of the teacher and education:

I would love to do a bit more training on it even with…different religions as part of the Learning Together curriculum…if I’m very unaware or unsure about a topic, I’d be more inclined to shy away from it because there’s a lot of self-teaching that needs to be done.

Teacher ET Rural (Irish Native)

The largely homogenous teaching body in Ireland and insufficient preparation during ITE (Hannigan et al., 2022) presents another challenge to accommodating the various cultures and religions represented in a classroom. This can be problematic as teachers often find it challenging to understand the perspectives, attitudes, and experiences of migrant students due to cultural and religious differences (Adebayo and Heinz, 2023). Despite initiatives from the Programme for Access to Higher Education (PATHS) strand 1 to increase the number of entrants from under-represented groups into ITE programmes, and the introduction of the Migrant Teacher Bridging Programme, that aims at assisting aspiring migrant teachers to develop knowledge, skills, and confidence to gain employment in the primary school sector, a diversity gap persists. In the Learn Together curriculum in ET schools and the GMGY programme in CNS, teachers are expected to share information about diverse religions. However, challenges arise when teachers must move out of their comfort zone and teach about religions and cultures they know little about:

I think the biggest challenge for me… is that when you come from Ireland, you more or less will be brought up in a Catholic school. So, you’re very much all about the Catholic religion and all the Catholic festivals… When you’re trying to teach them about the Muslim celebrations or Jewish celebrations, you really have to go do a little bit of research.

ET Urban Teacher (Irish Background)

Furthermore, this study found that school principals play a critical role in creating and maintaining a culturally responsive ethos in schools. School principals appeared to set the tone for an inclusive school environment by creating open lines of communication with parents, welcoming new families to the school, greeting students each morning, and exemplifying culturally responsive attitudes. Several teachers and parents noted that they felt that the school principal is the key figure within the school for setting the tone for the creation of an inclusive school environment:

The principal sets the tone for a very open relationship with students and parents…And it’s a very nice kind of community atmosphere, everybody knows everybody… It’s very supportive and very friendly and we are really happy with the school. There is a very nice atmosphere and I think that comes from the principal.

COI Urban Parent (Northern Ireland)

Power and the complexity of managing diversity

This study found that the gap between policy and practice can emerge as a result of how and where decisions concerning the school are made. Historically, schools have had the power and autonomy to determine how students and families are characterised and what behaviours are acceptable and thus rewarded (Khalifa, 2018). Here, the marginalised group internalises the understanding of the world from the dominant group, in this case, school leaders and educators. In Ireland, there remains a discrepancy between a school’s staff make-up and the community the school represents. Thus, a gap may emerge between national rhetoric to empower diverse backgrounds within the school setting and practice, as minority groups are marginalised in the decision-making processes of the school.

Noting these difficulties, Khalifa (2018) calls for greater community epistemology in policy decisions concerning school improvements. Failure to involve the community more in decision-making and develop a more ‘bottom-up’ approach, can allow for tensions to emerge between the messages students receive from their home culture and the accepted social and cultural norms of Irish society (Adebayo and Heinz, 2023). For example, depending on the cultural and religious background, a parents’ framework for raising children may differ greatly from what they encounter at school. To illustrate, one parent from Pakistan shared that the moral relativism embedded in the ethos of the CNS curriculum was at odds with their framework for raising children:

…they end up teaching a child that… your right, can be right. And my right can be right…humanity has to have certain kinds of guidelines in order to live in harmony. For example… my daughter…I served her meal…And she started sobbing…‘why are you crying?’ And she’s like…‘I don’t feel like eating that.’ I said, ‘you’re very hungry, you just come back from school.’ ‘No, but my teacher has said that I’m a human being and I have my right to choose’.... There has to be a fine line, where the wrong is a wrong.

This highlights an acute challenge for all educators in Ireland. Although certain practices have allowed for greater representation of the various religions and cultures, the curricula deployed in Irish schools are based on Eurocentric approaches to education. Although the merit of different curricula from around the globe goes beyond the scope of this research, it is still critical to recognise that parents from various cultures and religions possess various expectations regarding education and, therefore, simply acknowledging different religions and cultures may not satisfy all parents’ aspirations for their child’s education. To address this, some countries have introduced separate minority religion schools. To a certain extent, this is also happening in Ireland, with the introduction of Muslim and Jewish schools. However, the number of schools is very small. Furthermore, efforts to involve parents and students in the decision-making process have resulted in the establishment of Parent Councils and Parent Associations, as well as student councils.

While there is a growing body of research that acknowledges the importance of student and parent voices in relation to introducing changes to school practices, it has been argued that efforts to include parents and students in decision-making can at times be tokenistic and inconsequential to the day-to-day running of the school (Darmody, 2011). This presents a clear problem for Irish schools as studies have found that drawing on the views of parents from migrant backgrounds is essential for understanding how best to respond to the needs of children from different cultural backgrounds (Adebayo and Heinz, 2023). As such, a dynamic, ongoing dialogue between the educator and parents that moves beyond tokenistic gestures of inclusion is required. This is particularly evident in diverse classrooms where teachers are tasked with navigating the complexities that arise from encountering diverse worldviews. Several teachers, in such classrooms, expressed difficulties in approaching certain subjects. For example, one urban CNS teacher (Irish Native) described the difficulty navigating topics such as religion:

I think the biggest challenge…having such different beliefs in the classroom. Just because some of them are so vocal about what they believe in… some of them would be… like… ‘I don’t believe in that.’ And that can sometimes put down people a little bit… Because that’s what they’re obviously taught at home.

Furthermore, teachers expressed challenges in covering subjects such as gender, and LGBTQ+ and thus, teachers are placed in uncomfortable and difficult situations. Adebayo and Heinz (2023: 14) found that the ‘complex interplay of teachers’ lack of cultural knowledge and intercultural experience, socio-political assumptions, and insecurities’ may result in teachers seeking to avoid an exploration of such topics. This further highlights the necessity of a strong dialogue between the school leaders and parents. However, a study conducted by Smyth et al. (2009) found that schools often reported low levels of parental involvement, particularly from migrant parents. Factors highlighted by Smyth et al. (2009) for lack of involvement from newcomer parents included language difficulties, shift work, and not knowing what the expectation of involvement are. Therefore, although structures such as Parent Associations exist, the question arises, whose voices are being represented in such spaces. The findings from this study also found that cultural differences and the extent to which families feel they are already part of a community can act as potential barriers for parent involvement. For example, one teacher from an urban CNS (Irish native) highlighted some challenges in involving parents in school life. Here, the teacher shares several assumptions regarding the barriers that prevent families, particularly from migrant backgrounds, becoming involved in the life of the school:

It’s really difficult to get like parents to become involved in the school. I think because they have their own community outside of school…that they don’t feel the need to be part of the school. Like cultures really stick together and don’t really mix that well in the schools…

Another topic that emerged from the data pertained to the role of the students in creating culturally responsive environments. Previous studies have demonstrated the role of agency in developing interethnic friendships and developing religious knowledge (Faas et al., 2018). When schools had a whole-school approach for developing student voice, it appeared students were in a better position to influence the environment of the school. For example, a rural ET school adopted an initiative by UNICEF as a means of enhancing students’ agency and voice within the school setting. This initiative seeks to enhance young people’s understanding of their basic human rights. In doing so, children develop confidence to speak out against violations of human rights towards themselves and others:

…the nice thing about it is children who didn’t have a voice beforehand, they suddenly do, and they can speak up for other people… It gives the children who didn’t have a voice kind of these ideas and these phrases that they stock use to like defend their own rights.

Rural ET Teacher (British)

Conclusion

This article sets out to explore the factors that can assist in reducing the gap between policy and practice in relation to creating culturally responsive school environments. As evidenced, efforts are being made across the different school types in Ireland to respond to the increased cultural diversity within the country. However, in a vastly denominational educational landscape, navigating the expectation of an institutional ethos and accommodating the diverse identities within the classroom has become a daily challenge for many educators. Failure to accelerate towards the goals of the Forum of Patronage and Pluralism and respond to parental choice in Ireland is exacerbating tensions between policy and daily experiences in primary schools across Ireland. The responses from the study demonstrate that teachers in denominational settings, although able to make adaptations to the curriculum based on the classroom composition, are limited in the extent that they can respond due to structural factors and expectations placed on them by the institutional ethos.

Moreover, although developments have been made to ensure the educational landscape in the primary school sector reflects the plurality of cultures in Ireland, namely, by increasing the number of multi-denominational and equality-based primary schools, obstacles to ensuring schools are fully responsive to cultural diversity persist. As illustrated, despite developing an ethos and curriculum that is inclusive to diverse religions and cultures, challenges are encountered in its implementation. A key factor highlighted in this study is the cultural homogeneity of the teaching body and the somewhat limited training opportunities to develop tools to manage diversity. This, coupled with neoliberal pressures and, consequently, the positionality of cultural, religious, and ethical education within the school curriculum suggests that sufficient time is often not always available in schools to adopt practices that allow for a more comprehensive approach to creating culturally responsive environments.

In light of these findings, this study proposes three policy recommendations to reduce the gap between policy and practice. Firstly, it is necessary that all stakeholders involved with implementing culturally responsive practices within the school have access to a clear understanding of what it means to be a culturally responsive educator. Here it is important to avoid oversimplification and adopting a checklist approach to culturally responsive teaching, but rather, there is a need for teachers and school principals to be connected to CPD opportunities in which they can gain clarity regarding the key tenets of culturally responsive teaching. This is essential for educators in all school sectors. Furthermore, culturally responsive teaching must receive greater attention in pre-service teacher training. Although pre-service training in Ireland offers modules that address inclusion, critics have argued that they are treated as standalone modules (Hannigan et al., 2022). This study, therefore, echoes the calls for a more robust pre-service training. Secondly, it is important to involve different stakeholders in the decision-making process. Efforts to move beyond top-down approaches to educational decision-making and encouraging ‘bottom-up’ initiatives can result in school environments that reflect the needs of the communities where the schools operate. Although policies and practices concerning developing student and parent voices are present in the Irish educational system, challenges persist regarding how to engage parents from diverse backgrounds and how to assist parents and students feel they are co-creators of the school environment. Finally, it is necessary to accelerate efforts to increase the number of multi-denominational and equality-based schools and achieve the goals outlined by the Forum of Patronage and Pluralism.

The factors outlined in this study shed light on how a discrepancy between policy and practice can emerge with regards to creating culturally responsive school environments. The findings presented are of social utility as they contribute to a body of knowledge that can assist in reducing this gap and aid the development of a culturally responsive educational landscape, and thus ultimately, contribute to the creation of a more cohesive society.