The scale of ethnic diversity in Ireland was recently outlined to a US audience with a special interest in social care, by Dr Perry Share, Head of the Department of Humanities at IT Sligo.
During a recent visit to mark International Week at Wheelock College in Boston, Dr Share delivered a keynote address “Social care in a multicultural society: Lessons from Ireland”.
Wheelock College which was established in 1888 aims “to improve the lives of children and families”. A private college, it is strongly focused on educating for the social professions – in early childhood education, social work, juvenile justice and related areas. Because of a common interest in early childhood education, Wheelock and IT Sligo have developed strong links and the colleges signed a Memorandum of Understanding last year.
In his address, Dr Share, the Presidential International Visiting Scholar, pointed out that from 1996 to 2006 there had been a significant surge in the number of EU-born people resident in this country, and also in the proportion born in non EU states who live in the Republic of Ireland. He explained that there had been a big increase in the numbers arriving here from specific countries such as Poland, Nigeria, Latvia, Brazil, Lithuania, China, Slovakia and Estonia.
Dr Share told the gathering that the vast majority of Polish immigrants were young, male and Catholic and that they worked mainly in construction retail, hospitality and as cleaners “very like the traditional Irish emigrants of the 1950s”. He said that many people from the Irish American community think of Ireland in terms of emigration rather than immigration, and don’t realize how “fluid” the situation is now as people follow the job opportunities, and move easily between countries.
Dr Share visited Wheelock at the invitation of college President Jackie Jenkins-Scott. His week-long visit coincided with Wheelock’s International Week which had as its theme “Celebrating and Promoting International Educational Exchange”.
Dr Share met with educators from South Africa, Israel, Guatemala, Ghana and the Caribbean, and during the week he visited ABCD Boston – the city’s leading community development and welfare organisation.
He also attended the ‘Passion for Action’ Leadership Award dinner at the spectacular John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, where current educational and future student leaders were honoured. Prior to the dinner, Dr Share toured the ‘President’s Room’ of the library and viewed numerous personal artefacts of the Kennedy family, including a book personally inscribed by President Eamon de Valera to JFK on the occasion of his visit to Ireland in 1963. He also met with Dr Bernard Lafayette and Virginius Thornton, who were part of the inner circle of Dr. Martin Luther King, the American civil rights leader.
Dr Share stressed the importance of developing links between IT Sligo and Wheelock College. Wheelock’s Professor Diane Levin spoke at the recent Early Childhood Care and Education Conference, and it is hoped that future activities will include student exchanges and placements, faculty exchanges, as well as joint research and joint programmes.
“We believe that at IT Sligo we are preparing our students for the global workplace and indeed we have graduates in Australia and Sweden,” said Dr Share.
Wheelock will mark its 125th anniversary in 2013 with an international conference focusing on young people in the world today, and Dr Share says IT Sligo is anxious to work with them on that project.