Open Journal Systems Trinity College Dublin
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Out-of-School Social Activities among Immigrant-Origin Children Living in Ireland
Get PDFIn recent years, the children of immigrants have become an integral part of the Irish national tapestry. This article sheds light on their social engagement outside the formal education system by exploring sports and cultural participation among the children of immigrants. Participating in sport, fitness and cultural pursuits provides children and young people with opportunities for enjoyment and social interaction and may ultimately strengthen community cohesion. In addition, cultural participation outside school has been found to enhance engagement and academic progress within school. The findings show that, at nine years of age, immigrant-origin children are less likely to take part in organised sports or structured cultural activities (such as music or dance classes) than their Irish peers. The participation gap is greater for those from non-English-speaking backgrounds and those whose families are from Eastern Europe, Africa or Asia. The gap between immigrant and Irish children’s leisure participation reduces over time, although involvement at nine has a notable influence on participation at 13 and involvement among Asian young people remains lower than among other groups. Lower self-reported popularity levels among immigrant-origin 13-year-olds are largely explained by lower levels of involvement in organised sports. The findings therefore have implications for ensuring the inclusion of immigrant children in out-of-school activities and for their integration more generally
An Irish Solution…? Questioning the Expansion of Special Classes in an Era of Inclusive Education
Get PDFWith the major policy shift towards inclusive education internationally, this paper examines the ongoing expansion of special classes in Irish primary and second-level schools. Using data from a mixed-methods longitudinal study on special classes, we examine if special classes are operating as a form of segregation or inclusion for children with special educational needs. The findings suggest that special classes only operate as a unit of inclusion where children have severe needs. For children with moderate or mild needs, the findings are less clear with some classes operating as a segregated setting or low stream class with no official sanction resulting in issues around teacher competency and stigma among students
The Cultural Intermediaries Reader (Jennifer Smith Maguire and Julian Matthews, eds.: Sage, 2014)
Get PDFA review of the conceptualisations of ‘cultural intermediaries’ in The Cultural Intermediaries Reader, edited by Jennifer Smith Maguire and Julian Mathews.
In The Cultural Intermediaries Reader, Jennifer Smith Maguire and Julian Mathews aim to offer the first comprehensive introduction to the contemporary conceptualisation of cultural intermediaries. In the introduction, the editors offer an initial definition of cultural intermediaries as the taste makers defining what counts as good taste and cool culture in today’s marketplace. Working at the intersection of culture and economy, they perform critical operations in the production and promotion of consumption, constructing legitimacy and adding value through the qualification of goods. (p.1
Addressing Market Segmentation and Incentives for Risk Selection: How Well Does Risk Equalisation in the Irish Private Health Insurance Market Work?
Get PDFThis study assesses the efficacy of Ireland’s recently introduced risk equalisation scheme in its voluntary health insurance market. Robust risk equalisation is especially important in an Irish context given acute risk segmentation and incentives for risk selection that have evolved within the market. Using uniquely acquired VHI data (N=1,235,922) this analysis assesses the predictive efficacy of both current and alternative risk equalisation specifications. Results suggest that the low predictive power of the current risk equalisation design (R2 = 6.8 per cent) is not appropriately correcting for anti-competitive incentives and asymmetries in the market. Improvements to the current design could be achieved through the introduction of diagnosis-based risk adjusters
Civic Returns to Education: Voter Turnout in Ireland
Get PDFEducation is one of the most often cited explanations for voter turnout. However, the international evidence that estimates the causal effect of education on voter turnout is mixed. There is no evidence for such a causal effect in Ireland. Using data from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), and employing the instrumental variable (IV) probit model, we investigate whether education has a causal effect on individuals’ political participation in their later lives. We find that individuals with more education are more likely to vote in the general election. The effects are larger for individuals whose parents have only primary education or below, and for individuals growing up in a poor family. The findings provide motivations for increasing targeted public supports in education for students coming from a disadvantaged family
Integrated Modelling of the Impact of Direct and Indirect Taxes Using Complementary Datasets
Get PDFComprehensive modelling of the impact of taxes and tax policy options requires data on the impact at micro-level of both direct and indirect taxes. With some exceptions, most national expenditure surveys are not suitable for use in detailed modelling of the direct tax and welfare system. This makes approaches that impute expenditure data into detailed income surveys of considerable interest. Using a commonly applied method of imputing expenditure data into an income survey, this paper examines the degree of sensitivity in the distribution of household expenditure, and following that the distributional impact of indirect taxes, as the analysis moves from being based on actual expenditure data as recorded in the Irish Household Budget Survey (HBS), to being based on expenditure data imputed to the Irish Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC). Most sensitivity is found in the estimation and imputation of expenditure data for the bottom income decile. Nonetheless, the imputation process is shown to produce highly comparable distributional results when compared with actual expenditure data. An application of an indirect tax microsimulation model integrated with SWITCH, the ESRI tax-benefit microsimulation model, examines the distributional effects of simultaneous reforms of the direct tax, indirect tax, and social welfare systems, illustrating the analytical capability of the approach tested here
Cultural Capital: The Rise and Fall of Creative Britain (Robert Hewison: Verso Books, 2014)
Get PDFA review of Robert Hewison’s Cultural Capital: The Rise and Fall of Creative Britain, which provides a cultural historian’s perspective on publically funded culture in Britain from 1997 to 2012
Robert Hewison’s latest book provides a cultural historian’s perspective on publically funded culture in Britain from 1997 to 2012. What emerges over this two hundred and thirty-four page narrative of a particular period in British cultural history – from Cool Britannia at the end of the twentieth century through to the splendor of the Olympics in 2012 – is a considered reflection on the relationship between publically funded culture and the State. It raises interesting questions for anyone either working with or interested in cultural policy, and in view of Ireland’s recently published Culture 2025 policy framework, the book makes for an educational read. It counts the true costs of what happens when government takes a direct interest in arts and culture for the pursuit of other policy aims. Ominously, as Hewison forewarns us, ‘the lesson of this is: be careful what you wish for’ (p. 3)
ÉIRE Mod: A DSGE Model for Ireland
Get PDFWe present ÉIRE Mod, a quarterly DSGE model developed for macroeconomic policy analysis in Ireland. We simulate productivity and wage and price mark-up shocks to mimic the impact of various structural reforms aimed at improving the efficiency and competitiveness of the Irish economy. We find that all the structural reforms lead to an increase in aggregate output. However, depending on the source of the shocks, there are important differences in the transmission channels and the effect on employment and external competitiveness. This work is the first step towards the development of a suite of DSGE models for Ireland. Extensions of the core ÉIRE Mod detailed here will further enhance its analytic capabilities
Wagner in Ireland: An Econometric Analysis
Get PDFThis paper presents an econometric analysis of Wagner’s Law in Ireland for the period 1970-2012. To estimate the long run relationship between government expenditure and gross national product per capita the bounds testing procedure of Pesaran and Shin (2001) is employed. The analysis is performed using both real and nominal variables. The paper finds that although government expenditure has been rising over the period in question the rate of growth has not outpaced growth in GDP per capita, thus weighing against Wagner’s Law. Results are robust across a selection of the most prominent model specifications in the literature, and to the volatility in government spending during the recent crisis. Some policy considerations are also explored
Determinants and Effects of School Age Childcare on Children’s Cognitive and Socio-Emotional Outcomes at Age 13
Get PDFLittle is known about the determinants or the influence of childcare arrangements for school age children in the Irish context. Using longitudinal data from Wave 1 and Wave 2 of the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) child cohort study, this paper examines the factors associated with participation in non-parental after-school care in middle childhood and examines the influence of such care settings on children’s outcomes at age 13. The findings show that participation in the type of after-school clubs captured by the GUI data (largely paid care in a group setting) is supporting children with specific educational needs and those with limited family support, as well as being strongly associated with maternal employment and high household income. Cognitive and socio-emotional outcomes at thirteen years are best explained by child, family, school and parental characteristics rather than direct effects of the type of out-of-school care arrangement held at age nine