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Project Summary
The period since the mid-1990s has seen an unprecedented increase in immigration to the Republic of Ireland, with estimates of net immigration of over 276,000 in the decade between 1996 and 2005. This means that although the migrant population of Ireland is constantly changing, it is now also increasingly becoming an established population, with an emerging younger generation attending schools across the country and participating in Irish society. Too often the perspectives of children and young people have been left out in studies of migration. Our aim is to understand the social worlds of migrant children and youth in different migrant communities from their own perspectives by using child-centred research methods.
The research programme, funded by the EU Commission through a Marie Curie Excellence Grant, aims to contribute to understandings of immigration and integration among children and young people in contemporary Irish society. It seeks to map the social worlds of migrant children and youth at the local level in different contexts. The research will produce in-depth analysis of the nature and extent of integration, drawing on current ideas of transnationalism, citizenship and geographies of childhood, and will propose recommendations.
The researchers comply with the project’s own detailed ethical protocol, drawing on best practice in research with children and young people and in consultation with UCC’s Research Ethics Board.
The research programme is interdisciplinary in nature and involves four interrelated strands, each one corresponding to a specific immigrant group:
(1) African/Irish Childhoods: asylum, refuge and living in Ireland
Contact: Dr. Allen White, allen.white@ucc.ie , 021-4903842
(2)From Central and Eastern Europe to Ireland: children’s and young people’s experiences of migration and integration
Contact: Dr. Naomi Bushin, N.Bushin@ucc.ie , 021-4903698
(3) Latin American and Asian Migrant Children
Contact: Dr. Fina Carpena-Méndez, f.carpena@ucc.ie 021-4903842
(4) Children and Return Migration:
Contact: Dr. Caitríona Ní Laoire, c.nilaoire@ucc.ie Team Leader, 021-4903656
