1st Edition
The Irish Education Experiment The National System of Education in the Nineteenth Century
This volume focuses on the creation, structure and evolution of the Irish national system of education. It illustrates how the system was shaped by the religious, social and political realities of nineteenth century Ireland and discusses the effects that the system had upon the Irish nation: namely that it was the chief means by which the country was transformed from one in which illiteracy predominated to one in which most people, even the poorest, could read and write.
1. The Irish National System as an Educational Surprise. 2. The Eighteenth-Century Background. 3. An Administrative Genealogy. 4. Some Bureaucratic Archaeology, 1831-49. 5 Spinning the Eudcational Top, 1831-49. 6. The Politics of the Curriculum, 1831-54. 7. Over the Hill and Into the Woods, 1850-70. 8. Twenty Hearts Beating as None, 1871-1900. 9. Conclusion. Appendix. Bibliography. Index.
Biography
Donald Akenson
‘This book not only celebrates an eminent Victorian, it also traces the slowly developing interest in educational theory and locates this exactly where it belongs – at the heart of the learning and teaching process.’ Peter Mortimore, Institute of Education, University of London.
