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In a unique contribution to understanding the interaction of language policy and planning in modern conflict resolution, Janet Muller provides an insider account of the search for improved status for the Irish language in Northern Ireland from the 1980s.

Examines Shakespeare’s role in contemporary cultureThis book deals with Shakespeare’s role in contemporary culture. It looks in detail at the way that Shakespeare’s plays inform modern ideas of cultural value and the work required to make Shakespeare part of modern culture. It is unique in using social policy, anthropology and economics, as well as close readings of the playwright, to show how a text from the past becomes part of contemporary culture and how Shakespeare’s writing informs modern ideas of cultural value. It goes beyond the twentieth-century cultural studies debates that argued the case for and against Shakespeare’s status, to show how he can exist both as a free artistic resource and as a branded product in the cultural marketplace. It will appeal not only to scholars studying Shakespeare, but also to educators and any reader interested in contemporary cultural policy.

IntroductionDue to conflicts of national identity and religion, human rights legislation has been integral to Northern Ireland’s post-war journey. As a result of this, the post-conflict generation of girls, female adolescents, and non-heterosexual, queer-identifying peoples have more rights, opportunities, and recognition in educational policy than generations prior. However, government reports show issues within the country’s Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) curricula, including that only one in five Northern Irish schools have touched upon lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) topics.MethodsThis paper presents the first feminist post-structuralist analysis focusing on gender and sexual inequalities within the current national policy framework (as of September 2021) informing school-based RSE. Applying feminist critical discourse and content analysis to examine official government circulars, legislative text, and RSE policy guidance distributed to schools, feminist lenses are drawn on to examine four main sets of issues: bodies, sexual agency and pleasure, the inclusion of gender and sexual diversity, and heteronormativity.ResultsFindings show that despite human rights legislation and having statutory RSE with legislated content, central discourses within the national RSE policy framework impose a story of female victimization, problematize binary constructions of gender, participate in the erasure of non-binary identifying persons, and prioritize compulsory heteronormativity.ConclusionsUntil inclusive, non-binary language and standardized content is prescribed within the minimum content found in legislation and deemed statutory by the Department of Education, young people will not receive uniform RSE, undermining the importance of gender and sexual inclusivity and diversity.Policy ImplicationsDiscourses illuminated within this paper may be drawn on by international policy actors and researchers to elucidate taken-for-granted or problematic language found within their own policies so that the rights of marginalized bodies and sexual identities are instilled and those who have been victimized may find empowerment.

This paper is concerned with the language of policy documents in the field of health care, and how ‘readings’ of such documents might be validated in the context of a narrative analysis. The substantive focus is on a comparative study of UK health policy documents (N = 20) as produced by the various assemblies, governments and executives of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland during the period 2000–09. Following the identification of some key characteristics of narrative structure the authors indicate how text-mining strategies allied with features of semantic and network analysis can be used to unravel the basic elements of policy stories and to facilitate the presentation of data in such a way that readers can verify the strengths (and weaknesses) of any given analysis – with regard to claims concerning, say, the presence, absence or relative importance of key ideas and concepts. Readers can also ‘see’ how the different components of any one story might fit together, and to get a sense of what has been excluded from the narrative as well as what has been included, and thereby assess the reliability and validity of interpretations that have been placed upon the data.

This introduction to the special issue start from the point that studying the politics of memory should also involve studying the governance and policies of memory: its administrations. The increasing importance of transnational and local scales in memory studies seems to have made the nation a less relevant starting point from which to conceptualize memory. Yet, states progressively attempt to administer memory. This suggests that we should focus at once on transcending methodological nationalism and bringing back the state in the study of the politics of memory. This involves thinking about administrations of memory both in terms of the processes of dispensing or aiding memory and as the state bodies that are authorized and expected to manage memory. As such, this introductory chapter is structured around two issues: (a) the interactions between transnational, national, and local scales in policy trajectories, practices, and discourses on memory and (b) the role of governance and administration in understanding memory as a category of public intervention. Both sets present a thumbnail case to illustrate the issues at stake, and taken together, they develop our ongoing reflexions on memory as a contemporary conduit for practicing politics and setting up political institutions. The ambition is for memory studies to gain a firmer understanding of the governmental and technocratic co-production of political languages for memory as they are themselves shaped in the policymaking process by (trans) national institutional practices and bureaucratic conduits. In turn, political science approaches on the whole may gain from a firmer appreciation and conceptualization of the structures and carriers of collective memory in and across particular political cultures, which may also lead to more reflexive policy instrumentation and programming in contemporary societies trying to deal in and with the past.

This study explores the perspectives of teachers and pupils regarding the benefits and challenges of teaching Classics in primary classrooms in Northern Ireland (NI). Conducted in 2020, the methodological approach consisted of interviews with six teachers from three schools and a focus group held with eight children.1 The study identified positive impacts of teaching Classics on numerous subjects, including Modern Foreign Languages (MFL). The most pressing challenge appeared to be a crowded curriculum. Teachers and pupils suggested that training and support be offered to educators in order to optimise links between Latin, English literacy and MFL understanding. Finally, recommendations are made for the future study of Classics in Northern Ireland.

This paper reports the results of research into social capital levels in the Central Housing Community Network, part of the community consultation structure of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Membership of the forum increased the bonding, bridging and linking social capital of its members and appeared to improve community relations, although that was not its stated purpose. However, the empirical link between social capital and the quality of community relations remains unproven. The research provides an example of the state creating a positive space for interaction with civil society through consultation on service delivery issues. In an international policy environment where 'mixed' communities are the ideal, the potential of service-based forums to contribute to community cohesion may have been underestimated.

Many design conventions are legally binding, state-issued building codes and regulations, but many others derive their authority from other sources, are enforced by other means and exist for other purposes. This paper therefore introduces a scheme to cover the wide variety of de facto building conventions. Particularly interesting examples of seemingly atypical conventions can be found in Northern Ireland where the specific socio-political situation requires particular design approaches. Many design conventions guide the creation of artefacts that attempt to influence people's behaviour. The distinction between corpo-active versus symbolic mechanisms and socio-fugal versus socio-petal effects is introduced in order to grasp further differences between such socio-active artefacts. The latter are of special significance in situations where communities in strife are slowly learning to practise a peaceful co-existence, as is demonstrated with one specific case study.

This volume covers the language situation in the Czech Republic, European Union and Northern Ireland explaining the linguistic diversity, the historical and political contexts and the current language situation – including language-in-education planning, the role of the media, the role of religion, and the roles of non-indigenous languages. The authors are indigenous and/or have been participants in the language planning context. The purpose of the volumes in this series is to present up-to-date information on polities that are not well-known to researchers in the field. A longer-range purpose is to collect comparabale information on as many polities as possible in order to facilitate the development of a richer theory to guide language policy and planning in other polities that undertake the development of a national policy on languages. This volumes is part of an areal series which is committed to providing descriptions of language planning and policy in countries around the world.

In a global context of an emphasis on identity politics and a 'cultural turn' in social analysis, deep concern has been expressed about multiethnic Britain becoming a broken society with many 'sleepwalking' into segregation and separatism. Given the close correspondence between areas of acute ethnic segregation and those of multiple deprivation, intercommunal tensions have included disputes about the equitable allocation of scarce urban resources across ethnicity. This creates the possibility that urban programmes may inadvertently accentuate intercommunal tension and confound efforts to synchronise cohesion and inclusion agendas. Following recent debates about the implications of increased diversity, influenced by arguments that multiculturalism has encouraged 'parallel lives', an emergent policy framework emphasises more proactive integration to promote 'common belonging'. Criticism of this agenda includes its confusion between community and social cohesion, and its disproportionate focus on cultural aspects such as identity formation and recognition, relative to structural issues of income and class. In exploring this contested terrain in Britain, the article suggests that the longer-term debate about segregation, deprivation and community differentials in Northern Ireland can offer useful insight for Britain's policy discourse.