School-Police Collaboration in Politically Contentious Settings: Lessons Learned From the Shared Education Model, Northern Ireland

• In Event: Park Central Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Policing for/Against Peace

Abstract

This paper is interested in exploring the nature of police-school engagements in contexts where policing is, or has been, politically contentious. Northern Ireland provides a particularly good example of this. We examine how a partnership of Catholic and Protestant schools, involved in an educational initiative known as Shared Education which promotes reconcilliation, actively worked with the police to address a range of social issues in classrooms. The paper explores how school networks can make it easier for key social institutions, such as the police, to engage positively with schools and demonstrates the educative capacity of the police to address health and social issues which were of immediate concern to schools.

Authors

• Gavin Duffy, Queen's University - Belfast

• Tony M. Gallagher, Queen's University