Poverty and Education in Northern Ireland: the Legacy of Division and Conflict

Abstract

This chapter examines the issue of poverty and education in Northern Ireland (NI) and how the particular economic, social, political, and educational challenges associated with NI following the Troubles (1968-1998) are viewed as inextricably entangled in this region of the United Kingdom. After briefly outlining the relatively recent and current political and policy landscapes, it goes on to consider patterns of demography, poverty and deprivation and educational achievement and how these link to segregation and issues of difference. The chapter then draws on a major, largely qualitative study that was undertaken in NI, Investigating Links in Achievement and Deprivation (ILiAD), in order to illustrate how any simple statistical correlation of deprivation and educational achievement plays out here in a much more complex nuanced manner.