The accelerating integration of digital technologies in education is reshaping learning, yet this transformation unfolds alongside persistent digital exclusion, limiting many parents’ capacity to support their children's digital learning. These inequalities are compounded by psychological barriers, including low digital parenting self-efficacy (DPSE). These factors constrain parental involvement in home-based digital learning, which is consistently linked to improved student outcomes.

This paper reports findings from a qualitative study exploring the experiences of twenty-five parents who participated in the Programme to Enhance Digital Literacy (PEDL), a school-based intervention designed to shape parental self-efficacy. Implemented across three iterations in ten post-primary schools in the Republic of Ireland, data from a purposive sample of parents were captured via semi-structured interviews and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Findings confirm that PEDL successfully shaped DPSE and enhanced family-school partnerships through relational ties. Theoretically, this study proposes recognising digital as a distinct third domain of parental involvement. Practically, the results highlight the pivotal role of the Home School Community Liaison (HSCL) coordinator as a key relational mechanism required to mitigate psychological and structural barriers. This study contributes an in-depth, context-sensitive exploration of how a school-based intervention can actively shape DPSE and advance digital inclusion. By providing an evidence base for the successful design and implementation of an intervention to shape DPSE, this research establishes a clear pathway from the legacy of digital exclusion to a more digitally inclusive future for family-school partnerships.

As digital technologies become increasingly embedded in education, concerns have grown about their influence on learners’ mental health, behaviour, and overall well-being. Consequently, the concept of digital well-being has gained significant attention across research, policy, and practice. Yet, the term remains inconsistently defined and insufficiently examined in terms of real-world application, especially within school settings. This systematic review investigates how digital well-being is understood and supported in primary and post-primary education internationally. It examines how students and teachers engage with digital media, the subsequent effects on well-being, and the approaches used to foster healthier digital practices in schools. The review also explores stakeholder responsibilities, implementation barriers, and relevant policy considerations. In line with PRISMA guidelines, 50 peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2025 were identified from six academic databases. A deductive thematic analysis was conducted to explore definitions, dimensions, and educational uses of digital well-being. Findings show substantial diversity in how digital well-being is conceptualised, framing it as: (1) an outcome affecting students and teachers; (2) a multidimensional construct spanning emotional, cognitive, social, and behavioural domains; and (3) a competency associated with digital literacy. Although technology can support and hinder well-being, practical school-based interventions remain limited. The review highlights the critical roles of teachers, school leaders, and parents, advocating for more holistic, inclusive, and stakeholder-driven strategies. Overall, the study emphasises the need for a clearer and more actionable understanding of digital well-being to effectively inform educational policy and practice.

In recent years, higher education has increasingly recognised the value of students as partners (SaP) approaches in enhancing learning, teaching, and institutional development, particularly in aspects related to technological developments (Nichol et al., 2023; Peseta et al., 2021). Within this broader context, central units such as Centres for Teaching and Learning (CTLs) occupy a unique position in having the potential to facilitate, support, and sustain partnership initiatives across disciplinary and institutional boundaries. This paper explores three perspectives on how to foster meaningful partnerships based on interconnected case studies that reflect different modes and scales of collaboration.

The first case examines a student-staff partnership initiative focused on developing digital competencies, including a co-created workshop on generative AI that emerged in response to findings from an earlier institutional survey on digital teaching and learning experiences of students at university. The second case examines implementation models for effectively establishing staff-student partnerships and explores a pilot initiative within a teaching and learning centre. The third case looks at the impact of staff-student partnerships on the development of digital skills in Higher Education and how they influence national and institutional policy.

Drawing on mixed qualitative methods including focus groups, reflective interviews, and document analysis, the study identifies key themes around equity, motivation, ownership, and the role of facilitative leadership in sustaining partnerships. The findings will highlight both the potential and the tensions of partnership work led or coordinated or partnered by a central unit, particularly in balancing institutional priorities with equity and teachers and student agency.

The paper explores the potential role of higher education to strategically and pedagogically support partnership cultures. By articulating lessons learned across the three case studies, this work contributes to ongoing conversations about how universities can ethically and effectively co-create learning futures with students, particularly as it relates to digital transformation and the emerging technologies shaping higher education practice.

References

Nichol, D., Mulholland, K., Anderson, A., Taylor, S., & Davies, J. (2023). ‘How was it for you?’ The impacts of student-staff partnerships in developing online teaching and learning. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 47(9), 1276-1287. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2023.2241393

Peseta, Tai, Donoghue, Alex, Hifazat, Sameer, Suresh, Shivani, & Beathe, Ashley. (2021). Dancing with power in'We are the university: Students co-creating change'. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 18(7), 258-272. https://doi.org/10.53761/1.18.7.16

The Education Research Summit focused on the future of Irish Education. All the main themes had a future-oriented perspective. Organised by the Central Policy Unit of the Department of Education and Youth, it set out an agenda that focused what Irish education should be in the future.

Through an examination of the published book of Abstracts, this Roundtable will engage in a critical theoretical and feminist analysis of the papers presented at the Summit. It will explore what the summit tells us about Irish educational research. It will examine the themes and topics that were included in the conference, focusing especially on what theoretical paradigms are dominant in Irish educational thinking. In particular it will explore how feminist matters and critical thinking inform Irish educational research.

It will address the following kinds of questions: Is consensualism still a guiding principle of Irish intellectual thinking in education as it was in the 1980s? How were issues such as power and control in Education examined at the conference. Is the human capital paradigm an accepted one in thinking about education? What are the implications for affective care, equality and relationality in and through education? Did papers examine questions about who makes decisions about the direction of travel of education in Ireland? What are the implications of those working in education in terms of the rise of precarious and hyper-flexible employment conditions? How liberatory is Irish education, for children especially, including children with diffabilities/disabilities? How liberatory is it for adults? Where are the possibilities for transformative change and greater social justice in and through education?

More specifically, drawing on papers research from three leading scholars in the field, it will address the gendered character of power and control, the increased capitalisation and privatisation of education, and the issue of diversity, especially diverse how and if learning rhythms are accommodated in education.

*Kathleen Lynch will be the discussant, basing her analysis in the context of her forthcoming book, Beyond Human Capitalist Education, Routledge (July 2026).

Grummell, B. 2023. Recognising diverse learning rhythms, relationships and temporalities in adult literacy learning. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 42 (6): 603-615.

Mooney Simmie (2023) The gendered construction of teachers’ identities and practices: feminist critical discourse analysis of policy texts in Ireland, Gender and Education, DOI: 10.1080/09540253.2023.2167944

Skerritt, C. & Salokangas, M. (2020) Patterns and paths towards privatisation in Ireland, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 52:1, 84-99

Contemporary discourse positions the inclusion of the experiences of so-called 'hard to reach’ communities as a key construct of social policy and research. While the inclusion of the experiences of vulnerable groups in research is deemed as valuable and significant for all, this does not always indicate that the views of marginalised communities are being heard (Lewis et al, 2023). While research has the potential to provide a platform for marginalised groups, this can only be achieved when the research is designed in a way that ensures a meaningful inclusion of their perspectives. This paper critically discusses methodological approaches needed to achieve this and argues that inclusion is feasible once time, space and relationships are carefully considered alongside a methodological framework that has the flexibility and adaptability to meet individual needs of research participants. This paper focuses in a particular way on the research undertaken for the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Review in the Republic of Ireland (Authors et al, 2024), where the lived experiences of hard to reach groups were included in a meaningful way. The challenges and potential of the methodological design are analysed with a view to unravelling how the experiences of those in hard to reach communities can be purposefully incorporated into research.

Increasing the representation of hard to reach and other marginalised groups in governance, policy reform and research requires a proactive approach to participation. In our study, the use of inclusive, participative research approaches succeeded in demonstrating value and respect for hard to reach groups and provided a space in which their views could be heard and their lived experiences of the ECCE programme are represented (Authors et al., 2024). In the context of the values of social justice and the rights based paradigm which underpinned the ECCE Review, the methodological framework provided an opportunity for hard to reach groups to make their views heard from beyond the model of disadvantage and dis-engagement in which government policy very often seeks to confine them (Atkins, 2013). In doing so, the so-called hard to reach families were reachable within early years research spaces.

References

Atkins, L. (2013). Researching ‘with’, not ‘on’: engaging marginalised learners in the research process. Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 18(1-2), 143-158.

Lewis, C., Mehmet, M., Quinton, S., & Reynolds, N. (2023). Methodologies for researching marginalised and/or potentially vulnerable groups. International Journal of Market Research, 65(2-3), 147-154.

The study of parental engagement for immigrant families has become an important aspect of education. However, in Ireland, there is a paucity of research in relation to immigrant parents’ engagement with their children’s early childhood care and education (ECCE).

Immigrant parents have important insights into matters that concern their children’s ECCE and, like other parents, benefit hugely from being active participants in their children’s ECCE. Therefore, this presentation, titled “Empowering Immigrant Parents: Strategies for Engaging Immigrant Parents in Early Childhood Care and Education,” aims to foster a collaborative environment where early childhood educators and immigrant parents work together to enhance children’s learning and development.

Drawing on insights gathered from semi-structured interviews conducted during a doctorate study that examined the lived experiences of Nigerian immigrant mothers’ engagement with their children’s ECCE within the Irish context through the lenses of Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) Ecological Systems Theory and Epstein’s (2019) Framework of Six Types of Involvement.

In 2022, 15 Nigerian mothers who had children availing of a free preschool programme between the years of 2020 and 2022 were purposefully selected to participate in the study. They reported barriers such as cultural differences and ethnic backgrounds, COVID-19, and parents’ work commitment as impediments to immigrant parents’ engagement in ECCE within the Irish context. These findings serve as a backdrop for my presentation.

During this presentation, I will delve into these barriers and offer practical strategies to address and overcome them. By the end of the session, attendees will be equipped with effective tools to foster meaningful and active engagement with parents of young children with immigrant backgrounds in Ireland.

References

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979) The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design, London: Harvard University Press.

Epstein, J.L. (2019) ‘School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Caring for the

Children We Share’ in Epstein, J.L., Sanders, M.G., Sheldon, S.B., Simon, B.S.,

Salinas, K.C., Jansorn, N. and Corwin, K.J., eds., School, Family and Community

Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, 4th ed., 11-32, Thousands oaks, CA: Corwin

Press.