Jordan, Elizabeth (2022) Obedience and Nationalism: Oral histories from a Patrician Brothers’ primary school during the 1960s in Galway, Ireland. Master thesis, Pedagogical and Educational Sciences.
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Abstract
The purpose of this research was to gain insight into the everyday school experiences, the ‘black box’ of schooling, for pupils in the 1960s. Thus, the research focused on participants’ experiences in an urban, all-boys, 1,000-pupil Patrician Brothers’ primary school in Galway City, Ireland, during the 1960s. Therefore, the political, educational, religious and cultural contexts are outlined to provide the reader with insight into society and schooling in Ireland at the time. To investigate the ‘black box’ of schooling, Gert Biesta’s functions of education framework was utilised. Biesta (2020) breaks the functions into qualification, socialisation and subjectification and the findings are presented under these headings. An oral history methodology was used to uncover how school-life was experienced by the participants within St Pat’s and how this impacted them. Thus, semi-structured interviews with four participants were carried out. Additionally, primary and secondary research was carried out: curriculum documents, government reports, Oireachtas debates, newspapers, a pupil song-book and St Pat’s commemoration book were all reviewed. The findings give insight into a curriculum and learning experience underpinned by nationalism and Catholicism, rote learning, numerous tensions between policy aims and pupil experience, obedience and corporal punishment, a code of silence and fear, and the effects that the functions of education can have on the psyche. Thus, this research highlights and captures the ‘black box’ of schooling and the grey area between the ‘romantic’ and ‘horrendous’ accounts of school experiences.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Westberg, B.A.J. and Cantell, M.H. |
| Degree programme: | Pedagogical and Educational Sciences |
| Differentiation route: | Ethics and Education: philosophy, history and law [Master Pedagogical and Educational Sciences] |
| Date Deposited: | 31 Jan 2022 15:53 |
| Last Modified: | 31 Jan 2022 15:53 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/107 |
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