Professor Daniel Faas
Professor in, Sociology

Projects

• Title
  • ATTITUDES TOWARD FAMILY FORMATION AND HAVING CHILDREN IN IRELAND: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF MIGRANTS AND THE GENERAL POPULATION
• Summary
  • The overall aim of this study (supported by the Arts and Social Sciences Benefactions Fund at Trinity College Dublin) is to explore whether migrants in Ireland hold similar or different attitudes to family formation compared with the general population. Ireland's birth rate has been falling over the last decades from an average of four children per woman to just under two and is heading toward the European average of 1.5. This issue is of key policy relevance in light of the 'demographic time bomb' facing Europe. The proposed study will involve new analyses of a major dataset from a study of attitudes to family formation in Ireland. Preliminary analyses have already been carried, including a series of factor analyses on 1) attitudes to marriage, 2) attitudes to cohabitation, 3) attitudes to being single, and 4) attitudes to having children which have resulted in a series of multivariate measures which are more robust than individual items. This new study will compare the composite scores of migrants with those of the rest of the population on these measures.
• Funding Agency
  • Trinity College Dublin
• Date From
  • 2023
• Date To
  • 2025

• Title
  • MULTI-ETHNIC COMMUNITIES AND RELIGION: HOW ACCOMMODATING ARE IRISH PRIMARY SCHOOLS?
• Summary
  • Ireland has seen rapid social change in recent years. There is currently a mismatch between a largely denominational (Catholic) primary education system and increasing ethno-cultural and religious diversity among students and the wider population. Considering these changes, there is now a variety of beliefs among children in schools, yet over 90 per cent of Irish primary schools are denominational. Schools have a crucial role to play in terms of social integration and inclusion. This is the first empirical study exploring school sector variation of the role of religion, inter-faith communication and religious education in Ireland. It asks the following questions: What do children know about other cultures and religions as a result of their primary schooling? To what extent does the stated school ethos correspond to classroom practice? How do primary schools encourage intercultural and inter-faith dialogue among their diverse student intake? What is the role of teachers and principals in exercising culturally responsive leadership and fostering inter-faith and intercultural dialogue? Quantitative and qualitative data will be gathered from principals, teachers, parents and pupils in eight case-study schools to obtain insights into the perspectives of key actors in schools. Schools in a rural and urban setting will be chosen to analyse the impact of geographical location and levels of diversity. Moreover different types of schools - ranging from denominational to multidenominational - will be chosen to analyse the differences across the primary school types in Ireland. The study's mixed-methods cross-sectoral design is novel and will shed new light on the role and place of religion in Irish schools and society.
• Funding Agency
  • Provost's Project Awards
• Date From
  • 2020
• Date To
  • 2024

• Title
  • ACADEMIC ENGAGEMENT OF POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH STUDENTS IN IRELAND: A MIXED-METHOD STUDY
• Summary
  • Higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide strive to provide the best possible training for postgraduate research students (PGRs), the next generation of researchers. Furthermore, trends in higher education indicate that the number of international PGRs in Ireland and other countries has consistently increased over the past decade, which has led to observable differences between international and local students and the way these engage within their HEI. These trends hold opportunities, benefits, and challenges for PGRs and HEIs alike. However, a paucity of research on PGRs' experiences and engagement within their HEIs exists. Therefore, the research question, what are factors predicting the engagement of PGRs within their Irish HEI, was articulated to investigate what factors influence a PGR's engagement. A mixed-method approach was used to explore PGRs' perceptions of factors influencing their engagement. Here, engagement is defined as a PGR's (1) participation in academic activities, (2) engagement with the supervisor, (3) engagement within the department, and (4) cognitive engagement. The research is based on the Irish PGR StudentSurvey.ie 2019 data and semi-structured interviews conducted with PGRs at Trinity College Dublin in 2021. The findings indicate that differences in engagement between Irish and internationally domiciled PGRs are influenced by perceived financial security and English language proficiency, which influence time available for engagement. Therefore, this project is of potential interest to policy-makers and HEIs, offering insights into how financial and language-related challenges for PGR students influence their engagement.
• Funding Agency
  • Trinity College Dublin
• Date From
  • 2021
• Date To
  • 2023

• Title
  • INTERNATIONAL STUDENT MOBILITY: RERSPONDING TO NATIONAL, REGIONAL AND GLOBAL CHALLENGES
• Summary
  • In both the UK and the Republic of Ireland, the government has placed considerable importance on processes of internationalisation within the higher education sector and, in particular, on further enhancing international student mobility (ISM). Attracting inward mobility (through both 'whole degree' as well as short-term or 'credit' mobility) is seen as an effective means of: developing more diverse campuses, to further the inter-cultural experiences and skills of 'home' students; bolstering the financial position of higher education institutions (HEIs) through the fees paid by incoming students; and exerting 'soft power' when graduates return home. Indeed, challenging targets have been set to increase the number of incoming students. Outward mobility has also increasingly come to be prioritised (primarily through credit mobility) as a means of enhancing the inter-cultural skills of students (and thus, it is assumed, their employability). These governmental objectives have tended to be taken up enthusiastically by individual HEIs within both countries, many of which have developed their own mobility schemes in addition to making use of established schemes such as Erasmus. Nevertheless, at the present moment, ISM in both the UK and Ireland faces a number of important challenges associated with: (i) the changing political context - related to, for example: Brexit (and the future of the Erasmus+ scheme); the growing dominance of China on the world stage and as an increasingly popular destination for mobile students; and the emergence of various 'regional hubs' (e.g. in Africa, the Middle East and East Asia) which offer a cheaper international alternative than Europe to prospective students; (ii) increasing awareness of the environmental costs of physical mobility and the responsibility of HEIs with respect to climate change, alongside the impact of global health concerns, brought into sharp relief by the COVID-19 pandemic; and (iii) the socio-economic characteristics of mobile students - those who move remain more likely to be from socially privileged families and, where opportunities have been opened up more broadly, they have tended to become stratified, with those from lower income families clustered in lower quality schemes.
• Funding Agency
  • University of Surrey/Irish Research Council
• Date From
  • 2020
• Date To
  • 2021

• Title
  • EXAMINE EUROPE: EXAMINING EUROPEAN CULTURAL IDENTITIES THROUGH INTERDISCIPLINARY METHODS
• Summary
  • Can culture, and Europe's shared cultural heritage, provide a means of addressing the crisis of European identity? The current European crisis has often been framed in media commentary in economic terms or with regard to the challenges migration presents. However, the growing popularity of political groups across Europe that are critical of the European Union(and the current Brexit process) reflects a crisis in European identity. Many Europeans are unable to identify with European institutions and indeed with what it means to be European today. Examine Europe engages directly with this issue. Such major societal challenges cannot be addressed through one disciplinary approach; therefore this project draws on a range of disciplines in the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences (AHSS) and STEM areas. Three workshops will consider the strands of land/townscapes, sport and the media, schooling and curriculum design, as key components of Europe's shared cultural heritage and identity.
• Funding Agency
  • Irish Research Council
• Date From
  • 2019
• Date To
  • 2020

• Title
  • RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN IRELAND: EXPLORING THE RESPONSES OF COMMUNITY NATIONAL SCHOOLS
• Summary
  • Different approaches are taken in Irish schools regarding religious education, with little information on how students and teachers feel about the model adopted in the 11 new multi-denominational Community National Schools. Children are taught all subjects together including a specially-designed religious education programme, but then are streamed by religion for a certain amount of time each year to receive instruction in their individual faith. The aim of this study, directed by Prof Daniel Faas, is to explore the experiences of principals, teachers and pupils in Community National Schools. The main research questions are: What is the gap in existing knowledge? What impact does the religious education approach have on friendships? What approaches are taken in religious education classes, and do they differ across faith groups in schools? The study has a mixed-method approach, consisting of a questionnaire with principals in 11 Community National Schools; 2 semi-structured interviews with teachers in each school to hear their perceptions regarding challenges and opportunities regarding the provision of religious education; and 2 pupil focus-group interviews in each school to hear some of the voices of the children, aged 10 (Year 5). The project makes an original contribution to ongoing political and educational debates in Ireland and Europe around the provision of religious education in schools and the wider role of church-state relationships.
• Funding Agency
  • Trinity College Dublin
• Date From
  • 2016
• Date To
  • 2017

• Title
  • MANAGING DIVERSITY IN IRISH PRIMARY SCHOOLS
• Summary
  • Growing secularisation of the population and the arrival of new culturally and religiously diverse migrants are posing new challenges to Irish schools, particularly in the primary sector that has remained largely denominational. Over the last decades other school types have started to emerge as a response to parental demand. This study, directed by Prof Daniel Faas, focuses on ethnic and religious diversity across a range of primary schools in Ireland. It aims to analyse the differences in catering for diverse student intakes, particularly relating to different admission policies and different provisions of religious education. The central research question therefore is: How do different types of primary schools in Ireland accommodate and manage cultural, ethnic and religious diversity? The study looks at the governance of primary schools in Ireland, and locates this in a European comparative perspective. It systematically re-analyses an existing dataset of a larger study on migrant children in Irish schools: 'Adapting to Diversity: Irish schools and newcomer students' (ESRI, 2009), to explore the extent to which diversity management and accommodation varies between primary schools. The project also builds on insights from an FP7-funded study, Religious Education in Multicultural Countries (REMC), coordinated by the Economic and Social Research Institute.
• Funding Agency
  • Trinity College Dublin
• Date From
  • 2014
• Date To
  • 2016

• Title
  • CURRICULUM ALIGNMENT BETWEEN IB AND NATIONAL SYSTEMS (CAP)
• Summary
  • This project, directed by Dr. Daniel Faas, analyses the extent to which the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IB DP) school curriculum aligns with national standards in Germany and Switzerland in regard to content, cognitive demand, and philosophical underpinnings. It also explores the ways in which the intended non‐scholastic attributes of international mindedness, civic‐mindedness, citizenship, engagement, and motivation compare among IB DP, German and Swiss curriculum documents. The study compares and contrasts mathematics, a modern foreign language (Spanish), geography, history as well as biology in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Berlin (Germany) as well as Zurich and Geneva (Switzerland). It focuses on curricula in the 16 to 19 age range which are important for transition into university. The analysis considers regional and national political contexts, different socio-ethnic compositions of IB and mainstream schools in the two countries and likely impacts on curriculum design and development. It looks at expectations of student thinking including categories such as problem-solving and memorizing formula in mathematics or synthesising and understanding topics in social science subjects. It examines cultural, linguistic and religious heritage, interaction and student involvement, the impact on student and learner identities.
• Funding Agency
  • International Baccalaureate Organization
• Date From
  • 2014
• Date To
  • 2016

• Title
  • THE EUROPEANISATION OF INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION (EURINTED)
• Summary
  • Historically, education policy-making has been intertwined with the nation-building project. However, the centrality of the nation-state in education policy-making has been constrained by a wide range of new socio-political and economic phenomena that relate to European integration. The EURINTED project, coordinatated by Professor Panayiotis Angelides at the University of Nicosia, explores the transformation of intercultural education in the context of European integration. It will also indicate the ways in which European education policies are mediated and reframed by national institutions; through case studies of the development of intercultural education in Cyprus and Ireland. This project will examine the types of interaction between European and national intercultural policies; the ways in which European intercultural policies are mediated by national institutions; and the impact of this process for Cypriot and Irish educational policy-making for intercultural education. This project is informed by and runs alongside 'The Intercultural Education Strategy in Ireland: Old Wine in a New Bottle?' study. The purpose of this project is to provide a number of insights into the Europeanisation mechanisms of national intercultural education. The study will thus allow national and European policy-makers as well as educators to reflect on their intercultural educational approaches.
• Funding Agency
  • Research Promotion Foundation of Cyprus and the European Regional Development Fund
• Date From
  • 2011
• Date To
  • 2013

• Title
  • THE INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION STRATEGY IN IRELAND: OLD WINE IN A NEW BOTTLE?
• Summary
  • This project, directed by Dr. Daniel Faas, aims to evaluate the implementation of the new Irish Intercultural Education Strategy, launched in September 2010. Ireland has experienced large-scale immigration since 1996, particularly since the 2004 eastern enlargement of the European Union. With immigration presently slowing down as a result of the economic downturn, the issue of how to integrate those already residing in Ireland is now a pertinent issue. Drawing on interviews with two management staff in two primary, two post-primary and two third-level institutions in Dublin, the study analyzes how these define and operationalize interculturalism. The area of how schools and (young) universities like Dublin City University transpose intercultural guidelines into practice merits further research. Although the recent Department of Education and Science-commissioned report 'Adapting to Diversity: Irish Schools and Newcomer Students' identified some of the issues at stake and has informed the development of the Intercultural Education Strategy, little is known about the impact this new initiative will have on schools and how school management and staff understand and respond to migration-related diversity. This study arises out of consultation meetings organized by the Department of Education and Skills and forms the pilot of European collaborative work.
• Funding Agency
  • Trinity College Dublin
• Date From
  • 2010
• Date To
  • 2012

• Title
  • CIVIC INTEGRATION IN NORTHWEST EUROPEAN MIGRATION SOCIETIES (CIVITURN)
• Summary
  • The CIVITURN project engages with the thesis by Christian Joppke that Western European migration policy is converging towards a liberal consensus of anti-discrimination rights and labour market participation. While these tendencies are undisputable, the project endeavours to demonstrate that migration policies - comparatively studied in Denmark, Britain, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands across a range of policy areas including education and citizenship aspects - are not just 'liberal' but reflective of a civic or republican turn emphasising activity, autonomy, and 'good' citizenship. This turn is manifested in different ways according to national trajectories and public philosophies of integration (which are not the same as fixed archetype 'national models') in part to do with national conceptualisations of citizenship as a response to questions of unity, diversity and Islamic religion. Moreover, these citizen integration strategies are not only nationally diverse, but indicative of national identity concerns/nationalism. The research is in continuation of an EU-funded project (A European Approach to Multicultural Citizenship: Legal, Political and Educational Challenges) which focused on the experiences of Muslim and other migrant minorities in Europe. The project is at dissemination stage (please see articles co-authored with Mouritsen, Meer and de Witte).
• Funding Agency
  • Aarhus University Faculty of Social Sciences
• Date From
  • 2008
• Date To
  • 2011

• Title
  • GLOBAL MIGRATION AND INTEGRATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY
• Summary
  • This new interdisciplinary and policy-oriented research programme in Ethnicity and Education, directed by Dr. Daniel Faas, studies the responses to cultural and religious diversity primarily in education but also related areas such as the labour market. With inward migration to Ireland and Europe slowing down as a result of the global economic downturn, the focus has shifted from migration studies to issues of integration. The main initiative includes an analysis of the impacts of the new Irish Intercultural Education Strategy in primary, post-primary and tertiary education and in particular how school management staff, including teachers and students, understand and respond to interculturalism in our knowledge-based society. Related actions to be implemented include the preparation of an international collaborative project on balancing diversity and social cohesion. Part of the funds will also be used to invite renowned speakers to Trinity and produce and launch two books. The project relates to the activities of the Trinity Immigration Initiative but with a stronger focus on education, thereby also strengthening and developing a key subdiscipline in the Department of Sociology. Several of my PhD students (working on return migration; racialised discourses in schools; and diversity management in the workplace) are attached to this research programme.
• Funding Agency
  • Trinity College Dublin
• Date From
  • 2009
• Date To
  • 2010

• Title
  • IMMIGRANT INCORPORATION AND CIVIC COHESION IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES
• Summary
  • During the first years of the 21st century, national citizenship identities on both sides of the Atlantic are being challenged by devolution and regionalisation on the one hand, and ever-increasing processes of European integration, globalisation and migration on the other. Minority ethnic communities, especially Muslims, have come under intense scrutiny in the wake of the terrorist events in the United States, Spain and England. Politicians and academics have been intensively debating what should be done to enhance civic cohesion in contemporary societies, and some of the latest efforts have focused on the role education and training systems play in the process of mediating the tensions between national majorities and migrant minorities. This project informs the preparation and implementation of new teaching units in the Department of Sociology and the Institute of European Studies, notably through developing a transatlantic perspective in existing University of Berkeley undergraduate and graduate modules on 'Immigration, Incorporation and Citizenship'. It also promotes comparative and interdisciplinary research with a view of strengthening the transatlantic research and policy community; fosters student exchanges and contributes to the debate on how to balance cultural and ethnic diversity with civic integration approaches.
• Funding Agency
  • Fulbright Commission
• Date From
  • 2009
• Date To
  • 2009

• Title
  • MULTICULTURAL EUROPE
• Summary
  • Europe is undergoing considerable demographic, political and social change as it moves towards a knowledge economy. At a time when Europe has entered accession talks with Turkey, politicians and policy-makers are presented with the challenge of constructing and promoting an inclusive multi-ethnic concept of Europe. The project is a response to these challenges and aims to address this research gap by developing a deeper understanding of (a) the ways in which EU policy-makers and politicians combine multicultural and European agendas and address the presence of Muslim communities in Europe; (b) the ways in which national educators and policy-makers in European countries with sizeable Muslim populations perceive European and multicultural agendas; and, (c) the ways in which school curricula of subjects like Geography, History and Citizenship address notions of multiculturalism and Europe. The choice of countries to be studied and compared includes Germany (old host country with a monocultural vision), England (old host country with a multicultural vision) and Greece (new host country with a monocultural vision), indeed three countries that have put different emphasis on their multicultural and European agendas. The project highlights the need to transform national curricula into more inclusive European and global learning approaches.
• Funding Agency
  • European Commission
• Date From
  • 2006
• Date To
  • 2008

• Title
  • NEGOTIATING POLITICAL IDENTITIES
• Summary
  • Globalization, European integration, and migration are challenging national identities and changing education across Europe. The nation-state no longer serves as the sole locus of civic participation and identity formation, and no longer has the influence it once had over the implementation of policies. This study examines how four schools in Britain and Germany mediate government policies, creating distinct educational contexts that shape youth identity megotiation and integration processes. It is the first of its kind to bring together within-country and between-country differences in identity formation among young people. By delving into the discourses of ethnic majority and Turkish minority youth, this study unravels a wide range of factors shaping contemporary identities and offers new insights into the particular role school policy approaches play in this process. The study situates these discussions within broader European and transatlantic theoretical and empirical debates on immigrant incorporation and offers a much-needed synthesis of European and American scholarship. The study will be an invaluable source of evidence for policymakers vand professionals concerned with balancing cultural diversity and social cohesion in such a way as to promote more inclusive citizenship and educational policies in multiethnic schools.
• Funding Agency
  • British Economic and Social Research Council
• Date From
  • 2002
• Date To
  • 2005