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Purpose: This article assesses how different aspects of the school climate relate to students' intended future electoral engagement. Until now, political socialization researchers found evidence for a relation between formal citizenship education in school and students' participation levels. There is less consensus, however, in how multiple aspects of informal political socialization can contribute to individuals' participatory acts. Method: To learn more about several aspects of informal political socialization and their relevance for student intended electoral participation this work draws on educational sciences and political socialization literature and focuses on multiple dimensions of school climate (cf. Konold, 2014; Lenzi, 2014) and their relationship to future electoral engagement. We rely on the English and Irish International Civic and Citizenship Survey (ICCS) 2009 data to operationalize multiple dimensions of the school climate. We estimate a structural equation model in which school climate is measured by indicators based on student and teacher questionnaire data aggregated at the school level. The relationship between multiple dimensions of school climate and student future electoral participation is tested. Findings: We find that in order to engage students in voting; schools should focus not only on the formal curriculum but also on more informal aspects (the school climate). Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is focused on the dangers and opportunities for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland presented by Brexit. It argues that the difficulties cannot analytically be understood nor the opportunities seized until we disaggregate 'identity politics', seeing it not as a function of a homogenous identity but of identity change. Once set in place, however, identity politics takes on its own dynamic. Exogenous shocks can open the opportunity of alternative aims, alliances and identity coalitions, and then the task is to find the institutional and political incentives to guide identity change in more open, deliberative and dialogic directions. That is what a constitutional moment provides. I argue that the exogenous shock of Brexit opens the way for such a period of north-south deliberation and reconstruction. The paper begins with the general argument and goes on to show how Brexit stimulates Irish government action and can lead to a constitutional moment, one focused not on the state in control in Northern Ireland but on creating deliberative political communities on the island and in its two parts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of marginal regions is closely linked to the socio-spatial polarisation of our society. Although marginality and peripherality can be considered a multidimensional phenomenon, the literature as well as social discourses often address only some of its dimensions, in particular on the basis of objective approaches. Such a research is usually based on the quantification of a wide range of statistical indicators, whether of a social, environmental or economic nature. This study aims to capture another equally important dimension of this phenomenon, namely the perception of marginality and peripherality. Drawing on a series of interviews carried out with experts in the field of Irish rurality, this research points to the various perceptions of this phenomenon in rural Ireland. The results once again confirm the complexity of marginality and peripherality, and highlight many differences but also similarities that exist with regard to this phenomenon in the Irish rural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates migrant access to employment using concepts from Granovetter [1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.”American Journal of Sociology78 (6): 1360–1380; Granovetter, M. 1983. “The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited.”Sociological Theory1: 201–233] relating to ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ ties in networks and from Coleman [1988. “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital.”American Journal of Sociology94: 95–121] and Putnam [2000.Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster] relating to the role of social capital in creating bonding and bridging relationships. Ethnographic research was conducted among Brazilian labour migrants in small towns in Ireland and returnees in Brazil who were recruited initially through an agent in the late 1990s to work in meat processing. Within a short time social networks began to assume importance in accessing employment, including family and friends, Brazilian ‘brokers’ and ‘non-pay Irish intermediaries’. Strong ties and bonding social capital were present within the migrant group, but weak ties and bridging social capital were also established which provided access to employment locally. These results provide further support for recent advice by Patulny and Svendsen [2007. “Exploring the Social Capital Grid: Bonding, Bridging, Qualitative, Quantitative.”International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy27 (1/2): 32–51] and Ryan[2011. “Migrants’ Social Networks and Weak Ties: Accessing Resources and Constructing Relationships Post-Migration.”The Sociological Review59 (4): 707–724] that researchers should examine the ways in which social capital and resources are used in networks instead of assuming a simple dichotomy between the roles of different types of ties. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the European Reformation and the colonisations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Ireland has evolved a distinctive religious geography which had profound implications for its political development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, leading ultimately to the division of the island along explicitly religio–territorial lines in 1921.Troubled Geographies, a major project funded under the auspices of the Arts and Humanities Research Council's ‘Religion and Society’ programme was the first attempt to seek to understand patterns of change in the island's complex geography of religious settlement in the period since the Great Famine of the mid-nineteenth century up to the most recent published censuses for both Northern Ireland and the Republic. This paper will present findings from a smaller spin-off project funded by the British Academy, which digitised records of attendance at Presbyterian churches across the island over the last 150 years, enabling us to assess how patterns of practice were affected by the momentous events of the period, including partition, civil war, two world wars, the vicissitudes of the global economy and the Troubles of the more recent past. In addition, the use of new quantitative materials such as those in the Presbyterian records enables us to reflect on how patterns of substantive religious practice reflect those on nominal religious affiliation available from successive censuses from either side of the border. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]