Education»Opportunities»EDU 494: Two Irelands

EDU 498: Two Irelands

Course Description

Based in the Northern Ireland border city of Derry/Londonderry, this place-based Learning course will construct a historical, socio-cultural, economic, political and educational description of Derry City and a region of Donegal as representatives of the two Irelands. A description of and participation in the educational systems on both sides to the national border will be complemented by community experiences involving the perspectives of selected social sciences, literature, and the Fine Arts.

Important Dates

Interested students should email Erin Counihan to be added to the contact list.

The course is projected to run in May / June 2014.

Educational Focus

A look at some of the purposes of the experience will give you a good idea of our educational focus:

To describe the Two Irelands Educational Systems in the context of The Categories Model
To construct a socio-economic and political description of Derry City and a region of Donegal as representative of the two Irelands.
To describe the Northern Ireland Government policy of “Education for Mutual Understanding” and deduce parallel similarities and differences in U.S. (split) communities.
To describe the political story of Twentieth Century Ireland changes in the beginnings of the 21^st century.
To describe how the “4+1” schools (model) affects identity formation and community cohesion, and provides obstacles to citizenship identity and community unity. (this involves the roles of social learning and transfer theory, the shaping of behavior, and the development of social capital).
To describe community in the two Irelands as viewed through the lenses of i) the social sciences, and ii) the Fine Arts and Literature.

The majority of the Two Irelands course will be situated in the city of Derry / Londonderry, where students will be based as they meet with educators on two sides of the international border. Students will have opportunities to study politics, religion, education, and history in a variety schools that have political and religious affiliations or that serve a mixed population.