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Child Item

Faith Schools Segregating Migrant Children

kylith

http://galwayindependent.com/stories/item/6312/2013-10/?Segregation-in-its-worst-form%3F-in-primary-schools

Religious discrimination in faith schools is leading to the children of immigrants being separated from Irish children. This social isolation could well lead to racial tensions in the long run.

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robindch

That happened before at a catholic-controlled school in Diswellstown in Dublin. Can't remember the full details off the top of my head, but basically, the majority or all of the kids of parents from Eastern Europe or those with dark skin had their applications summarily rejected as they weren't members of the correct religious club. So the Department of Education had to open up a new school, at short notice, in the area in order to accommodate them. If memory serves, the first classes in the school were something close to 80% immigrant and I don't recall the catholic-controlled school really giving much of a fuck.

Inexplicably -- or, sadly, all-too-explicably -- I seem to recall that ET wasn't even invited to apply to manage the school and I think it went either to the VEC or perhaps even back to the church.

The full details are buried in the forum's fossil record -- try searching for "Diswellstown".

jank

Wouldn't this happen anyway in a more secular country as those that want a religious education will just go to the same certain schools?

kylith

In a secular country school enrolment would be on a first come, first served basis, and religious instruction would be done outside of school time. The schools would have no excuse for turning away those it found undesirable, and a more inclusive Ireland could be forged.

Peregrinus

kylith wrote: »

In a secular country school enrolment would be on a first come, first served basis, and religious instruction would be done outside of school time. The schools would have no excuse for turning away those it found undesirable, and a more inclusive Ireland could be forged.

Secular countries can have selective schools, and here in Australia the church schools are, on the whole, more socially and racially diverse than the state schools.

Penn

jank wrote: »

Wouldn't this happen anyway in a more secular country as those that want a religious education will just go to the same certain schools?

This isn't about Catholics sending their children to Catholic schools

Ms Clarke explained that, while the “clustering” issue is complex, religion is one of the contributing factors being used “to keep migrants out of certain schools”.

It's about Catholic schools using religion to keep migrant children out of their schools, and highlights the problem once again that because so many of the schools are Catholic schools, the ability to refuse students based on religion is a wholly discriminatory one which should be stamped out.

jank

kylith wrote: »

In a secular country school enrolment would be on a first come, first served basis, and religious instruction would be done outside of school time. The schools would have no excuse for turning away those it found undesirable, and a more inclusive Ireland could be forged.

Yes, for state owned schools. However there will always be schools run by religious organisations who will offer education through a certain ethos whatever that may be. In a free and liberal society one cannot deny that right to others just because you don't want it yourself. So my original question is still valid, isn't this the natural course education will take in the future?

This incident is more of a question of inadequate education resources rather than religion.

Gumbi

jank wrote: »

Yes, for state owned schools. However there will always be schools run by religious organisations who will offer education through a certain ethos whatever that may be. In a free and liberal society one cannot deny that right to others just because you don't want it yourself. So my original question is still valid, isn't this the natural course education will take in the future?

This incident is more of a question of inadequate education resources rather than religion.

Hardly. How would it be fair to teach Catholicism I a class where perhaps half present are Catholics. A smattering more are Christian (some other sect), and the rest are unbelievers as of other minority religions. How is that fair?

jank

Peregrinus wrote: »

Secular countries can have selective schools, and here in Australia the church schools are, on the whole, more socially and racially diverse than the state schools.

Agree. I know this may be hard for people to hear but state run schools in Australia are nowhere near the standard of privately run schools and the vast majority of these schools have a religious ethos of some sort. They exist side by side yet the makeup of schools are very different racially and sometimes by background.

kylith

jank wrote: »

Yes, for state owned schools. However there will always be schools run by religious organisations who will offer education through a certain ethos whatever that may be. In a free and liberal society one cannot deny that right to others just because you don't want it yourself. So my original question is still valid, isn't this the natural course education will take in the future?

This incident is more of a question of inadequate education resources rather than religion.

Those schools run by religious organisations in other countries are, AFAIK, funded by the parents of the pupils and the religious organisations themselves. The RCC does not contribute financially to the running of state schools in Ireland and, therefore, should not be allowed to discriminate because of religion. If they wish to teach only Catholics, let the church and Catholic parents fund the school. If they want to keep receiving state funds then they should be obliged to take pupils on a first come, first served basis.

Peregrinus

jank wrote: »

Agree. I know this may be hard for people to hear but state run schools in Australia are nowhere near the standard of privately run schools and the vast majority of these schools have a religious ethos of some sort. They exist side by side yet the makeup of schools are very different racially and sometimes by background.

I disagree. The state schools are generally pretty good. But they tend not to be socially, ethnically or racially diverse, since they draw from quite narrowly defined catchment areas, and residential areas in Australia are informally but effectively segregated to a significant extent. Church schools have larger catchment areas and and therefore tend to have more diverse school populations.

jank

Penn wrote: »

This isn't about Catholics sending their children to Catholic schools

It's about Catholic schools using religion to keep migrant children out of their schools, and highlights the problem once again that because so many of the schools are Catholic schools, the ability to refuse students based on religion is a wholly discriminatory one which should be stamped out.

Yes, its one of the factors but not the whole story, so dont pretend that it is.
My point is that what is happening here is just what will happen in the future anyway, where people will go to secular schools or attend a school with a religious ethos. These children are still getting an education although not in a catholic school, I thought you guys would be happy with at least that fact?

Peregrinus

kylith wrote: »

Those schools run by religious organisations in other countries are, AFAIK, funded by the parents of the pupils and the religious organisations themselves.

Not so. Public funding of church schools is the norm in Europe, and we also have it in Australia. The US is the outlier here, not the norm.

kylith

Peregrinus wrote: »

Not so. Public funding of church schools is the norm in Europe, and we also have it in Australia. The US is the outlier here, not the norm.

Thank you for the correction. I think that this is an instance of the US having the right idea.

Penn

jank wrote: »

My point is that what is happening here is just what will happen in the future anyway, where people will go to secular schools or attend a school with a religious ethos. These children are still getting an education although not in a catholic school, I thought you guys would be happy with at least that fact?

But we're not in the future, jank. Many people don't have the opportunity to send their children to a secular school because there are no secular schools in their locality. I agree, it's not the only issue. But it's a pretty big one.

jank

Peregrinus wrote: »

I disagree. The state schools are generally pretty good. But they tend not to be socially, ethnically or racially diverse, since they draw from quite narrowly defined catchment areas, and residential areas in Australia are informally but effectively segregated to a significant extent. Church schools have larger catchment areas and and therefore tend to have more diverse school populations.

State schools really depends on where you live. If you live in the Eastern Suburbs in Sydney or the Northern Beaches, then your OK. If your out in Mt. Druit or Blacktown then your in trouble. That is where private education can come in handy. You might live in an area with not so great state run schools, but what you can do is send your child to a privately run school (or a catholic school) anywhere once you cough up the fees and adhire to their rules. I hear about 30% of children go to private schools in Australia, I think its much more prevalent in NZ and Australia then in Ireland. People will always pay for choice.

jank

Gumbi wrote: »

Hardly. How would it be fair to teach Catholicism I a class where perhaps half present are Catholics. A smattering more are Christian (some other sect), and the rest are unbelievers as of other minority religions. How is that fair?

These children are getting an education in a school. You would swear that they are left at home while some schools thumb their noses at them.

There is lots of legacy issues in Ireland that will take years to decouple from.

Gumbi

jank wrote: »

These children are getting an education in a school. You would swear that they are left at home while some schools thumb their noses at them.

There is lots of legacy issues in Ireland that will take years to decouple from.

You will burn in hell forever if you don't believe what I tell you IS NOT education.

Bannasidhe

Peregrinus wrote: »

Secular countries can have selective schools, and here in Australia the church schools are, on the whole, more socially and racially diverse than the state schools.

That certainly is not my experience of either of the High Schools my son attended in Australia - one is Sydney and one in Brisbane. Both were extremely socially and racially diverse and absolutely secular.

jank wrote: »

Agree. I know this may be hard for people to hear but state run schools in Australia are nowhere near the standard of privately run schools and the vast majority of these schools have a religious ethos of some sort. They exist side by side yet the makeup of schools are very different racially and sometimes by background.

As an education professional I have to disagree with this. I found the standard of education in Australian State schools to be of a very high standard. Certainly higher than that on offer in Irish schools.

Peregrinus

As far as the issue raised by the OP is concerned, religious schools will obviously tend towards segregation along religious lines, to a greater or lesser extent. This will result in social, ethnic or cultural segregation to the extent that religious identities map onto social, ethnic, etc. identities. In Ireland, to a large extent, they do, if only because the indigenous population is pretty homogenous, culturally, ethnically and religiously; in other countries, not so much.

Ending segregation along religious lines won’t necessarily end, or even reduce, other forms of segregation. If, as in Australia, state schools prioritise applicants according to where they live, that still results in significant social, etc segregation, and I suspect the same would be true in Ireland. The most effective way to end segregation is to adopt diversity as an explicit objective of every school’s admission policy, to subordinate other criteria to that one, and to enforce all this through a policy of bussing. And even that has limited success, as we can see from the US experience.

jank

kylith wrote: »

Those schools run by religious organisations in other countries are, AFAIK, funded by the parents of the pupils and the religious organisations themselves. The RCC does not contribute financially to the running of state schools in Ireland and, therefore, should not be allowed to discriminate because of religion. If they wish to teach only Catholics, let the church and Catholic parents fund the school. If they want to keep receiving state funds then they should be obliged to take pupils on a first come, first served basis.

Since we are talking about Australia the state and federal government subsidises religious run schools, along of course funding from the church and parents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_education_in_Australia

If its an issue about proportionality of funding then fair enough but this isnt what we are talking about here.

Peregrinus

jank wrote: »

State schools really depends on where you live. If you live in the Eastern Suburbs in Sydney or the Northern Beaches, then your OK. If your out in Mt. Druit or Blacktown then your in trouble. That is where private education can come in handy. You might live in an area with not so great state run schools, but what you can do is send your child to a privately run school (or a catholic school) anywhere once you cough up the fees and adhire to their rules. I hear about 30% of children go to private schools in Australia, I think its much more prevalent in NZ and Australia then in Ireland. People will always pay for choice.

Almost everyone in Australia has an effective choice between at least one state school and and least one church school, and the substantial majority choose a state school. I think that belies the notion that the states schools are generally seen as second-rate. That's not to say tha there may not be some second-rate states schools, but they're not generally second rate, and I don't think that most of the 30% or so who choose the church school do so because they think the state school is unacceptably bad.

jank

Penn wrote: »

But we're not in the future, jank. Many people don't have the opportunity to send their children to a secular school because there are no secular schools in their locality. I agree, it's not the only issue. But it's a pretty big one.

So whats the proposal? Admit everyone to catholic schools and then say because the state is paying for their education allow no religious teaching. So catholic schools become secular overnight by a state decree? Then and only then can 'real' catholic schools break off and offer education through their own ethos?
We both know thats not going to happen.

What will happen is a rollout of more secular minded schools where people will have the choice. It will take time of course but other then a hammer fisted approach that is not realistic then there is no real alternative.

Peregrinus

Bannasidhe wrote: »

That certainly is not my experience of either of the High Schools my son attended in Australia - one is Sydney and one in Brisbane. Both were extremely socially and racially diverse and absolutely secular.

I admit, I'm thinking more of primary schools (which is what the OP refers to). Primary schools are more homogenous because they have smaller catchment areas. My daughter's (excellent) state primary school had a school population that looked like a White Australia Policy fantasist's wet dream. The corresponding Catholic primary school was much more diverse, with substantial Vietnamese, Indonesian and Aboriginal representation. And I have a clutch of in-laws who work as primary teachers in the state system; they confirm that this is a recognised pattern.

Dades

jank wrote: »

Wouldn't this happen anyway in a more secular country as those that want a religious education will just go to the same certain schools?

If the option for public schools to discriminate was removed there would be a dilution of the numbers of immigrants in any one school.

There should (albeit begrudgingly) be the right for people to choose a religious school if they wish, just not a fully state-funded one. But that at least leaves the choice to bundle your children in with one ethnic group up to the parents.

jank wrote: »

So whats the proposal? Admit everyone to catholic schools and then say because the state is paying for their education allow no religious teaching. So catholic schools become secular overnight by a state decree? Then and only then can 'real' catholic schools break off and offer education through their own ethos?
We both know thats not going to happen.

Are we restricted to talking about only moves that are going to happen? I should think we have the right to talk about alternatives we believe are better, regardless of the likelihood of their implementation.

seamus

jank wrote: »

We both know thats not going to happen.

But there's no reason why it couldn't or shouldn't.

What will happen is a rollout of more secular minded schools where people will have the choice. It will take time of course but other then a hammer fisted approach that is not realistic then there is no real alternative.

There's always going to be an issue with that, where you can only build new schools where a proper demand exists. If you have one catholic school serving an entire locality, you don't build an entire new school to accommodate the 10% of children who can't/won't attend a religious school.

It means duplication of infrastructure and it's a much more fractured and fingers-in-the-ears approach to solving the issue.

The most obvious thing to do is to look at the choice of schooling available in an area. If a catholic school is the only available school in the area or are exceptionally dominant, then you take the school off them. In areas where there may be more competition, you leave the school with the catholics but take them out of the funding net.

There is a massive issue at the moment, especially in poorer areas where segregation is surreptitiously being enforced as catholic parents send their kids to the local catholic school and most of the migrants' children have to attend the ET or other secular school because the catholic school turns them away.

Penn

jank wrote: »

So whats the proposal? Admit everyone to catholic schools and then say because the state is paying for their education allow no religious teaching. So catholic schools become secular overnight by a state decree? Then and only then can 'real' catholic schools break off and offer education through their own ethos?
We both know thats not going to happen.

What will happen is a rollout of more secular minded schools where people will have the choice. It will take time of course but other then a hammer fisted approach that is not realistic then there is no real alternative.

What should happen is that schools should not be allowed to refuse children based on them having a different or no religion, and in a religious school when the religious children are being taught about their religion, there are adequate resources in place where the non-religious or children from another religion are given extra lessons or helped further with their work.

This would also reduce the need for parents who aren't religious to have their children baptised in order to get them into the local school.

Peregrinus

Dades wrote: »

If the option for public schools to discriminate was removed there would be a dilution of the numbers of immigrants in any one school.

Unless you're going to have a rule that all schools must admit everyone who applies, regardless of the capacity or resources of the school, then they must discriminate on some basis in order to select the applicants who will actually be admitted.

If your object is racial or cultural diversity, there's no guarantee that eliminating selection on the basis of faith will result in a more diverse school population; it depends on (a) how closely faith aligns with race or culture, (b) what selection criterion is substituted for faith, and (c) how closely that criterion aligns with race or culture. As I've argued based on the Australian experience, it's not impossible that eliminating faith as a selection criterion could make the diversity situation worse, not better.

I can;t avoid the suspicion that people who attack selection on the basis of faith because it undermines diversity are more concerned about attacking faith-based education than they are about promoting diversity. If your object is the promotion of racial, social or cultural diversity, then the rational course is to adopt selection criteria which affirmatively promote racial, social and cultural diversity. Simply rejecting criteria which refer to faith suggest that a different agenda is at work.

jank

Peregrinus wrote: »

Almost everyone in Australia has an effective choice between at least one state school and and least one church school, and the substantial majority choose a state school. I think that belies the notion that the states schools are generally seen as second-rate. That's not to say tha there may not be some second-rate states schools, but they're not generally second rate, and I don't think that most of the 30% or so who choose the church school do so because they think the state school is unacceptably bad.

Well, I think that the fact the almost 1/3 of the popluation attend a non governmental school is a clear indication that many many people are not that thrilled to go with the local state run school. Many would rather pay (some fees are over $20,000 a year) a large sum to avoid such a school. I am not tainting all state run schools as rubbish but the fact is that rubbish schools are more often then not state run. On average they underperform while spending the same amount of money per child. Indeed many private schools spend less per child then the government does and get better results.

Bannasidhe

Peregrinus wrote: »

I admit, I'm thinking more of primary schools (which is what the OP refers to). Primary schools are more homogenous because they have smaller catchment areas. My daughter's (excellent) state primary school had a school population that looked like a White Australia Policy fantasist's wet dream. The corresponding Catholic primary school was much more diverse, with substantial Vietnamese, Indonesian and Aboriginal representation. And I have a clutch of in-laws who work as primary teachers in the state system; they confirm that this is a recognised pattern.

I have no knowledge of Australian primary schools but I do have knowledge of English (London and Sheffield) ones and my experience there was that the local NS (at the time under the ILEA but now under the LA) was far more diverse than the local Catholic school which was something of an Irish ghetto under the domination of an Irish priest (he treated it as his own personal school).
The only time the kids from the Catholic school got to mix with non-Catholics was at the Youth club we had every night in the community centre I managed and I have to say, I certainly didn't see the Catholic school kids are being any better educated than those from the local NS. What they were was less aware of the need to respect other's beliefs and ignorant of other cultures.

A Jewish friend of mine had the same experience when she sent her son to a Faith based school so this is not just about Catholic schools. All faith based schools will naturally focus on teaching their own faith as the one true religion so engender an Us Vs Them attitude.

But- and this is the important point - parents had a choice whether they wished to send their children to the integrated, secular NS or to a less inclusive faith based school.
The issue in Ireland is that there is often no alternative but to send ones children to a faith based school so children who do not share that faith are overtly or subtly marked out as different by the system.

jank

Dades wrote: »

If the option for public schools to discriminate was removed there would be a dilution of the numbers of immigrants in any one school.

Discriminate on what? Religion? Thats a niave way of looking at it. In most countries you are discriminated against attending a number of public schools because you dont live in that area.

There is a public school in your postcode/parish so that is the school you have to attend. A secularists wet dream. Might be grand for some, yet as you can imagine some people would be unhappy with this as there might be a better school a few miles up the road yet they cannot attend because they dont live in that area. Just go look at the issues with the public school system in the United states. What is your solution to that problem?