This book examines the opening of university education to women in Ireland, locating the discussion within the wider social, political and cultural context of nineteenth century Irish society and within international developments in the reform of higher education for women. It looks at the state of education for females at the beginning of the nineteenth-century, the emergence of a reform movement, arguments for and against higher education for women, and the impact of higher educational provision on the role of women in Irish society. It offers for the first time a comprehensive analysis of the role and significance of women's colleges, which emerged from the 1850s in response to women's collective desire to access higher education and their exclusion from universities. The origins of these colleges, the kind of education they offered women, and the difference such an education made to women's career prospects are all considered. The book documents the differences between the Protestant and Catholic women's colleges and the rivalry which developed between them, spurred on by the public nature of the competitive examination process. Finally, it analyses the ideological arguments behind providing women with an education in an exclusively female domain and granting them full and equal access to the universities under the co-educational model.

This collection provides the first in-depth, interdisciplinary and over-arching review of higher education in Ireland, situating higher education within the socio-cultural, political and historical context of the country over the past 40 years and the development of European and national policies.

This book explores the emergence of the modern higher education sector in the independent Irish state. The author traces its origins from the traditional universities, technical schools and teacher training colleges at the start of the twentieth century, cataloguing its development into the complex, multi-layered and diverse system of the early twenty-first century. Focusing on the socio-political and cultural contexts which shaped the evolution of higher education, the author analyses the interplay between the state, academic institutions and other key institutional actors – notably churches, cultural organizations, employers, trade unions and supranational bodies. This study explores policy, structural and institutional change in Irish higher education, suggesting that the emergence of the modern higher education system in Ireland was influenced by ideologies and trends which owed much to a wider European and international context. The book considers how the exercise of power at local, national and international level impinged on the mission, purpose and values of higher education and on the creation and expansion of a distinctive higher education system. The author also explores a transformation in public and political understandings of the role of higher education, charting the gradual evolution from traditionalist conceptions of the academy as a repository for cultural and religious value formation, to the re-positioning of higher education as a vital factor in the knowledge based economy. This comprehensive volume will appeal to students and scholars of the Irish education system, educators and practitioners in the field, and those interested in higher education in Ireland more generally.

In the context of great change in the higher education sector, this report aims firstly to offer an overview and appraisal of trends and issues arising in the international domain of university education, which is broadly defined to include the functions of teaching, learning, scholarship and research, and secondly to focus these trends and issues in possibilities for action for consideration by the Irish university system. It is hoped thereby to assist universities to further their ideas and plans for their own future development. [Introduction, ed].

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