NORTHERN IRELAND is providing pioneering research on how conflict and community tensions can create sectarian and racist attitudes among very young children and how early years education is helping tackle the problem, an international educational conference in Belfast will hear this coming week.
Some 750 delegates from 80 countries are attending the World Forum on Early Care and Education which officially opens in Belfast tomorrow although hundreds of delegates arrived in the city at the weekend to attend a number of pre-conference closed sessions.
Belfast attracted the conference – which alone will be worth over £1 million in hotel bed nights to the city – against competition from Hawaii and South Africa primarily on the basis of work conducted in Northern Ireland on the impact of conflict on children, explained Siobhan Fitzpatrick who is chief executive of Early Years Northern Ireland.
She said that Prof Paul Connolly of Queen’s University Belfast had carried out major research on how the conflict in Northern Ireland affected children as young as three.
“We now know, by his research that was carried out in 2001, that not only do children pick up the issues in the communities that surround them but they begin to develop negative attitudes to others by the age of three. By the age of six that negativeness is turned into prejudice,” explained Ms Fitzpatrick.
“I really think that that is one of the key reasons why the World Forum has decided to come to Belfast. They have heard about the work that has been done here around peace-building programmes with young children,” she said.
“They are also aware of the research findings which are beginning to show positive, promising results in terms of having an impact on changing attitudes to sectarianism and racism,” added Ms Fitzpatrick.
She said that educational initiatives with children and with their parents based on the research aimed at tackling sectarianism and racism were bearing positive results.
Not only were children’s attitudes changing for the better but so were the views of their parents “The findings so far would suggest as a result of the work we are doing children’s attitudes to others who are different, especially in the context of religion in Northern Ireland but also in terms of race, authenticity and disability, do change significantly,” she added.
“Children are more able to understand how situations of exclusion make others feel. They are more willing to play with others who are different from themselves and are able to talk positively about symbols such as flags at sporting activities and cultural activities that tended to divide us here.
“So there has been a very positive shift in children’s attitudes and views around contentious issues,” said Ms Fitzpatrick.
Among the many subjects the conference will address will be: enticing children away from computer games into more stimulating forms of mental and physical exercise; children living with HIV and Aids; encouraging more men to be involved in childcare; and whether four and five is too young for children to begin schooling.
