https://dspace.mic.ul.ie:443 The MIRR digital repository system captures, stores, indexes, preserves, and distributes digital research material. 2017-11-05T07:50:28Z http://hdl.handle.net/10395/2117 An ethnography exploring how hegemony and power mediate agency and structure among a group of 6th year Irish girls in a middle-class Post-Primary school This is an ethnographic study of a culture-sharing group of 6th year girls. Facing the high stakes Leaving Certificate examinations while on the cusp of adulthood, this study contributes to the agency-structure debate from a feminist perspective. It is widely acknowledged that schools are sites of social and cultural reproduction with hegemony evident in visible and invisible ways. This ethnography describes how a group of girls navigate this territory in school. It explores the effects of the personal, group and institutional habitus which mediate the girls’ everyday interactions. The girls’ peer interactions and contextual experiences serve as an explanatory framework which references how power is shared, wielded and resisted among the myriad of relationships within the school. The school life of the girls is consequently explored at an individual and group level. Reflexivity and ethics are at the core of this ethnography conducted over one year in the field from September 2012 to September 2013. The research design is framed as a feminist reflexive ethnography and bound as a case study. Methods and analysis follow ethnographic techniques. The data gathered includes prolonged observation, ethnographic group and focus group interviews as well as in-depth one to one interviews. Data analysis is through grounded theory methods. This thesis defends the position of the teacher-researcher whilst acknowledging that the potential of the teacher-researcher is punctuated by dilemmas requiring careful consideration. This responsibility is enabled by an ethics of care and trust which is combined with a professional espoused and enacted code of ethics. The role of the key informant, critical friends and confirming voice of the girls are triangulated to challenge researcher bias or assumption and to assist with interpretation and understanding of the data. This study finds that social class continues to impact educational experience in significant ways, from personal to social to academic experience. The working class girls resisted the dominant discourses and were alienated from their peers and from elements of their own education. The middle class majority are the symbolic oppressors and are also the oppressed, as they collude in a conformity which impacts their own adolescent experience. Conscious agentive conformity is identified as ‘doxic’. These girls’ stories unveil how their agency is both enabled and sometimes constrained by the institution, peer-group and their own personal habitus. Therefore, contributions to the agency-structure debate through an examination of hegemony and social class illuminate further the positionality of the ‘girl’ in school and the school as a relatively powerless agent. The unveiling of these personal and collective lived experiences is enabled through the methodological approach which facilitates a shift from teacher to researcher. This study makes a contribution to the insider-outsider debate. It highlights the transition from teacher to researcher and asserts that this is a challenging but worthwhile shift, for the transformational and epistemological opportunities it can provide. 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10395/2116 'Searching for Moral Dumbfounding: Identifying Measurable Indicators of Moral Dumbfounding'. Collabra: Psychology, 3(1), 23. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.79 Moral dumbfounding is defined as maintaining a moral judgement, without supporting reasons. The most cited demonstration of dumbfounding does not identify a specific measure of dumbfounding and has not been published in peer-review form, or directly replicated. Despite limited empirical examination, dumbfounding has been widely discussed in moral psychology. The present research examines the reliability with which dumbfounding can be elicited, and aims to identify measureable indicators of dumbfounding. Study 1 aimed at establishing the effect that is reported in the literature. Participants read four scenarios and judged the actions described. An Interviewer challenged participants’ stated reasons for judgements. Dumbfounding was evoked, as measured by two indicators, admissions of not having reasons (17%), unsupported declarations (9%) with differences between scenarios. Study 2 measured dumbfounding as the selecting of an unsupported declaration as part of a computerised task. We observed high rates of dumbfounding across all scenarios. Studies 3a (college sample) and 3b (MTurk sample), addressing limitations in Study 2, replaced the unsupported declaration with an admission of having no reason, and included open-ended responses that were coded for unsupported declarations. As predicted, lower rates of dumbfounding were observed (3a 20%; 3b 16%; or 3a 32%; 3b 24% including unsupported declarations in open-ended responses). Two measures provided evidence for dumbfounding across three studies; rates varied with task type (interview/computer task), and with the particular measure being employed (admissions of not having reasons/unsupported declarations). Possible cognitive processes underlying dumbfounding and limitations of methodologies used are discussed as a means to account for this variability. 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10395/2115 Gaeltacht Uíbh Ráthaigh – Prófíl Dhéimeagrafach agus Socheacnamaíochta Socio-Economic and Demographic Profile Mary Immaculate College and Limerick Institute of Technology are pleased to present this report to Comhchoiste Uíbh Ráthaigh Teo and Údarás na Gaeltachta. The Report, which provides a demographic and socio-economic profile of the South Kerry Gaeltacht, is one of three core elements in a multi-pronged strategy aimed at promoting the sustainable development of this part of County Kerry. The other elements which this Report seeks to complement are a language planning exercise, which is being spearheaded by the local community and the work of a multi-agency task force that seeks to renew and re-focus statutory sector resources on proactive investment in Gaeltacht Uíbh Ráthaigh. 2017-05-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10395/2110 Diaspora and Rootedness, Amateurism and Professionalism in Media Discourses of Irish Soccer and Rugby in the 1990s and 2000s This article explores the tensions between conceptualizations of the nation in terms of diaspora and rootedness, and between amateurism and professionalism, in Irish media discourses of Irish soccer and rugby in the 1990s and 2000s. Given the article’s broad scope and limited space, detailed theoretical elaboration and extensive examination of discursive data will not be possible. Rather, the article offers a tentative overview of how these tensions have been manifested in Irish print and broadcast media, and of how they have evinced fantasies and anxieties about sporting achievement as indicative of collective national achievement. 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z