Parents: Dropout and crime part of kids’ lives

By Niall Murray, Education Correspondent

Some families in marginalised areas believe their children are destined to get involved in drugs or crime simply because of where they live, research with parents of early school leavers suggests.

The study with eight mothers and a father on a council estate in an unidentified Irish inner city area also found a belief that low expectations by teachers, politicians and society contribute to dropping out of education.

However, in an article on the findings in the Irish Educational Studies journal, there is an evident theme of parents seeing it as inevitable that their children would not finish school.

Gavin Doyle carried out the research as part of a master’s degree in education at NUI Galway in 2013, when he was working as a second-level teacher in Limerick.

Poor relations with schools and teachers also contributed, as reported in Saturday’s Irish Examiner, with a cycle of early school leaving running through families.

In some areas, the research suggests, it is normal not to go to school. One mother said her son just wanted to hang around the streets with older friends who had left school early.

Everyone was doing it, it was normal,” she said.

A father said his son’s mother had served prison time for dealing drugs, and he expected the boy would try illegal substances.

“I know he has to go through all these phases, I know he does, and I know myself he’s going to experiment with drink, he’s going to be experimenting with drugs,” he said.

One woman said her son had dropped out of school because he was unable to withstand peer pressure.

The need for survival was the priority of one mother for her son. He had been in a lot of trouble, so education was no longer important.

“My only hope is that he stays out of trouble, doesn’t get thrown into jail, or doesn’t end up dead,” she said. She said she had too often seen people get caught up with the wrong crowd and end up dead.

I know a young lad who was shot for owing €350 for drugs,” she said. “It was to send out a message and it was a ‘friend’ who killed him and dumped him in a grave.

Children grew up with criminal activity perceived as part of everyday life. The father of the boy whose mother was dealing drugs described their area as being “like the Bronx”.

He said his son could have been killed the night a gun shot at their regularly-targeted neighbour’s house hit five inches from the window of his bedroom.

“When you’re around that kind of thing all the time it becomes normal,” he said.

One mother spoke in a relaxed way about a prison term of “just three years” that her son received.

His writing has gotten very good since he went into prison, she said. “I’m hoping he’ll come out of there with a higher level of education than he went in with.

In the journal article, co-written with NUI Galway sociology of education lecturer Elaine Keane, Mr Doyle said the parents believed being from the area meant teachers and others immediately developed a negative perception of their motivations, aspirations, abilities “and, essentially, their worth”.

“In terms of feeling stigmatised, the participants believed that regular negative media coverage of the area affected teachers’ perceptions of them, their children and their subsequent life chances,” they wrote.