Seán Crowe
Question:524 Mr. Crowe asked the Minister for Education and Science his plans to introduce a series of anti-racist packages to the school curriculum. [15603/02]
Vol. 554 No. 5
524 Mr. Crowe asked the Minister for Education and Science his plans to introduce a series of anti-racist packages to the school curriculum. [15603/02]
Anti-racism attitudes are fostered through a number of curricular areas in primary and second level schools.
At primary level, subjects such as social, personal and health education, geography and history contribute to the development of knowledge, skills and attitudes that encourage respect for human and cultural diversity. Social, personal and health education – SPHE – seeks to foster in the child a sense of care and respect for himself-herself and others and an appreciation of the dignity of every human being. It also seeks to enable the child to respect human and cultural diversity and to appreciate and understand the interdependent nature of the world. In addition, the geography curriculum aims to enable children to develop empathy with people from diverse environments and an understanding of human interdependence, while the history curriculum is designed to enable children to acquire a balanced appreciation of cultural and historical inheritances from local, national and global contexts.
These aims are reflected in many of the detailed objectives outlined in the various strands and strand units of these curricula. For example, in the strand unit developing citizenship in the SPHE curriculum at fifth and sixth class level, children will be taught "to recognise and acknowledge the various cultural, religious, ethnic or other groups that exist in a community or society and explore ways in which these differences can be respected". At the same level in the geography curriculum, the strand human environments provides that children will learn about and appreciate the peoples and communities who live and work in the locality, in other parts of Ireland, Europe and the wider world. In doing so, the curriculum states that they will "develop an increasing awareness of the interdependence of people in these places and people in Ireland" and "learn to value and respect the diversity of peoples and their lifestyles in these areas and other parts of the world".
At second level, civic, social and political education – CSPE – and geography are among the subject areas that seek explicitly to develop responsible citizenship and anti-racist values.