Shared Education in Northern Ireland: Systemic Change through Blended Learning

Some 93% of young people growing up in Northern Ireland still attend separate schools that are either predominantly Catholic in ethos or state schools which attract pupils from a Protestant background. With a more settled political situation, efforts continue to find ways to improve community relations through policies directed at schools. The most recent effort, Shared Education, is based on linking schools from different sides of the community to develop collaborative partnerships for both teachers and pupils; this program now includes around two thirds of all schools. The chapter draws on recent research to show that blended contact is having a marked impact on young people and their teachers and is likely to be sustainable for those involved not least because it makes full use of the existing ICT infrastructure. New data shows that this approach has the capacity to lead to systemic change across all schools provided that appropriate teacher professional learning is provided at the right time and that software provides an environment for structured pupil interaction.