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This study identified ways to improve the social and educational outcomes of children with disabilities, including informing parents about the school and post-school options available.

This paper draws on longitudinal data to examine the extent to which parents’ educational expectations shape academic development and changes in self-concept among young people with different types of disability. The analysis is based on the Growing Up in Ireland longitudinal study, which tracked 7423 children between the primary to secondary school years, 21% of whom were identified with one of four main disability types. Our conceptual framework assumes that parental expectations at age 9 will be influenced by both the child’s disability and child’s academic achievement at that stage, as well as being influenced by other factors such as parent’s own education, family economic vulnerability, family relationships and family structure. Therefore, we take these factors into account in tracing the consequences of parental expectations at age 9, on academic and social outcomes at age 13 after the transition to secondary education. Among young people with a disability, poorer self-concept at age 13 is partly explained by lower parental expectations, particularly for those with general learning and emotional/behavioural disabilities. Similarly, parental expectations are a significant influence on children’s academic outcomes and partly explain the effects of disability status on academic development. Parents’ beliefs about their children’s abilities have a strong influence on achievement and self-concept, raising important issues around the need to promote equality of opportunity, raising awareness of the educational opportunities available, promoting positive expectations and engagement with school and the importance of promoting a range of opportunities for achievement.

Keywords
Parental expectations, socio-economic background, disability type, examination performance, self-concept

Whether school composition makes a difference for student outcomes has been the subject of much controversy. This article draws on Growing Up in Ireland data, a rich source of information on nine-year-old children along with the characteristics of their school and classroom teacher. In contrast to many studies which rely on a single measure of social background, the use of a range of measures (including social class, parental education and income) allows us to provide precise estimates of differences in performance between schools designated as disadvantaged and other schools. The analyses also provide new insights into the processes underlying such differences. Only the most disadvantaged schools, those in Urban Band 1, are found to have a contextual effect for both reading and mathematics. This achievement gap is found to reflect differences in teacher experience and turnover, the concentration of additional learning needs, absenteeism levels and children’s engagement in school.

Keywords
school social mix, primary education, academic performance

Chapter 8 examines aspects of provision for children with special educational needs and considers their inclusion within Irish mainstream education in recent years. It considers how much of the education and care of children with special needs in the early decades of the 20th century was provided by religious orders before going on to discuss how, since the early 1990s, there has been a substantial shift in focus from segregated educational provision towards a more inclusive view of special education, mainly delivered within mainstream schools. In particular, the chapter considers the proportion of children with special educational needs and variations in levels according to the background characteristics of the children in question.

This paper assesses the role of shadow education (SE), i.e. organised learning activities outside formal schooling, in the lives of secondary school students of different social backgrounds and in different school settings, in a high-stakes context. It draws on multilevel analysis of longitudinal Growing Up in Ireland data, alongside narratives from in-depth case study research in 10 schools. Framed within a social reproduction approach, we show how access to SE as an educational resource is socially stratified, accessible to those with greater levels of family resources, and those attending schools with higher socio-economic student intakes. SE is viewed as an investment, particularly among students with average and above average levels of prior attainment, while high attaining students are less likely to use SE. Perhaps reflecting the normalisation of SE in the Irish context, students do not directly link engagement in such tuition to their socio-emotional wellbeing.

Parents’ and teachers’ beliefs and evaluations of young people are important. Using a feminist institutionalist perspective, and drawing on rich data from one in seven nine-year-old children in Ireland, this paper examines mothers’ (who make up the overwhelming majority of primary care-givers) and teachers’ perceptions of boys’ and girls’ mathematics performance. The evidence shows that girls’ mathematics performance is underestimated by both relative to boys’. Mother’s gender bias was evident among high performing children, at all levels of children’s academic self-concept, and among mothers with at least third level education. While the judgements reflect children’s actual performance and engagement, a notable gender gap remains. It is suggested that the results reflect gender stereotypes: overestimating boys’ and underestimating girls’ mathematics achievements. The article indicates the importance of the informal dimension of institutions and the part played by women in the effective devaluation of girls by endorsing gendered stereotypes. Women teachers are less likely to rate children highly in mathematics, taking account of performance: arguably reflecting their own lack of confidence in mathematics assessment. The findings raise concerns for girls’ futures since mathematics is seen as an indicator of intelligence. Given the move towards teacher-assessed grading during COVID-19, understanding, and challenging, gender-stereotyping is pressing.

The transition from primary to secondary school represents one of the key junctions in the educational career of young people. Research has shown that much of the challenge in this transition stems from changing social structures and encountering different learning environments. However, the transition experiences of students with special educational needs (SEN) have received relatively little attention. Drawing on large-scale longitudinal data from over 7000 young people, we examine the extent to which students with different SEN experience additional transition barriers to their peers. The findings show that young people with SEN are more likely to experience a negative transition to secondary school. Furthermore, the type of need matters and students with general learning disabilities and intellectual disabilities are three times more likely to experience poor transition compared to young people without SEN. Transition experiences also vary by gender and socio-economic status, with girls and lower socio-economic groups more at risk. This paper highlights the importance of supporting students through to their second year in secondary education, promoting positive teacher–student interactions and providing additional supports for those with lower achievement in primary school. For students with disabilities, the research highlights a need for more effective transition supports, particularly during the pre-transition period.

Keywords
Transition, academic supports, social supports, special educational needs, secondary school

The present study examines whether breastfeeding is associated with neuro-developmental advantages at 9 months of age on a standardised measure of infant development in a large cohort study of Irish children. It is hypothesised that if breast-milk confers an independent benefit, infants who were never breastfed will have reached fewer developmental milestones than those who were partially or exclusively breastfed, after controlling for putative confounding variables. Families with infants aged 9-months were recruited as part of a nationally representative sample for the birth cohort of the Growing Up in Ireland study (n = 11,134). Information was collected from mothers on breastfeeding practices, socio-demographic characteristics and developmental progress during a household interview. Parent-report items on development covered communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving and personal-social skills. Analysis of pass/fail status in each developmental domain using binary logistic regression showed a positive effect of any breastfeeding on gross motor, fine motor, problem solving and personal-social skills (but not communication) and these remained after adjustment for a range of confounding variables. There was, however, little evidence of a dose–response effect or advantage of exclusive over partial breastfeeding. A clear advantage of breastfeeding on infant development was demonstrated. However, the lack of a dose–response association on pass rates suggests that the breastfeeding effect may be confounded by other unobserved factors or that there is a critical threshold during which time the effect of breast milk may be particularly salient for bolstering brain development.