Integrated Education in Northern Ireland:The Challenge of Transformation

Abstract

The paper is divided into two sections. Section one outlines the development of the transformation policy since its inception in the late 1970s, including a description of the formal procedures involved in transforming a school. Section two presents the results of the empirical study that mapped the process of transformation in practice. It begins by giving background information on the six schools that took part in the research. This is followed by an overview of the main processes involved in transforming each of the six schools, including a consideration of the factors involved in the initiation of the process, the relationships that developed to build support for the idea and the process of implementation.