In Northern Ireland, as in other divided and conflict-affected societies, the contribution of education and, particularly, the school curriculum in aiding social cohesion has long been recognised (Worden & Smith, 2017). The Northern Ireland Curriculum, introduced in all post-primary schools from 2007, emphasises education’s social priorities and creates opportunities for young people to explore the causes and consequences of division and difference through the teaching of history and citizenship.
In order for the socially transformative potential of education to be realised, a systemic synergy between the vision of educational policymakers and the teachers responsible for implementing the curriculum is a prerequisite; yet there is much evidence to suggest that individual teachers’ mediation of policy can lead to a refashioning of requirements to reflect what they feel comfortable with teaching (Ball, 1994). This practice of ‘curriculum by proxy’ occurs in many Northern Irish classrooms as the statutory requirements to teach controversial and contested issues related to ‘the past’, and its legacies, continue to be met with avoidance by some teachers yet embraced by others (Donnelly et al., 2020; Barton & McCully, 2007).
