| dc.description.abstract | As a newly qualified teacher in my first (Catholic) school, the class contained a number of children whose parents held various religious beliefs and ‘none’. During my first religious instruction lesson, these children (those
not of Catholic faith) quietly took out their reading books or homework. Curious, I asked other teachers in the
school what happened in their classes during religious instruction lessons. They all had similar responses, the
children whose parent’s had ’opted out’ of religious instruction did the same; some even got to do colouring.
It seemed to be accepted, and no one queried it or spoke with any of the children’s parents. This practice
seemed exclusionary to me. When I finally spoke with the principal, I asked if we could try to find some way to
include these children in the lessons, to allow them to contribute and share their own beliefs, their culture,
their traditions and views. But my suggestions were not acted upon. I have encountered similar variations of
this response over the years, which translates as almost an ambivalence. This ambivalence, in part, provided
the stimulus for this study.
Religious instruction and sacramental preparation are part of every-day school life for most children in Irish
primary schools, with almost 90 per cent of schools under the patronage of the Catholic Church (Central Statistics Office, 2020). A report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
showed that Irish primary schools are second only to Israel in the amount of time spent on religious instruction (OECD, 2014). Religious instruction has been ubiquitous in Irish Catholic primary schools almost since the
establishment of the national system of education in Ireland in 1831.
Over the past 20 years however, Ireland has experienced a significant growth of inward migration which is
reflected in the increasing levels of ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity in schools (Faas, Darmody &
Sokolowska, 2015; Hession, 2013; Kitching, 2020). This cultural shift, coupled with the considerable rise in
those identifying as having no religion, or identifying as atheist or agnostic (CSO, 2019) has resulted in an
increase in the number of parents opting their children out of religious instruction and sacramental preparation lessons in primary schools. To explore these issues, nine principals of Irish Catholic primary
schools were interviewed. As there are over 3000 primary schools in the Republic of Ireland, these nine
schools were specifically chosen as they could reasonably be expected to reflect other similar-type
schools. The schools selected fell into one of three categories:
(i) predominately ‘Catholic, White and Gaelic’ (Parker-Jenkins & Masterson, 2013)
(ii) schools with some religious diversity
(iii) schools with significant religious diversity
A mix of primary school types were also selected; DEIS band I and II, non-DEIS, small, medium and large
schools and inner city, urban and rural schools. These interviews were multi-purposeful. For this article
the focus will be on two specific areas, they are (a) the percentage of children opted-out of religious instruction and sacramental preparation in their schools, and (b) what their current practices and perspectives were for accommodating children opted out. | en |
