CFI Open Tender - Invitation to tender for provision of services to conduct research in the form of a longitudinal study on community education's role in supporting lone parents in Ireland facing disadvantage.

Descriptions

This research project is being funded by the Beachaire Fund, a charitable fund operating under the framework of donor managed funds which is administered by the Community Foundation for Ireland. One of the objectives of the Beachaire Fund is to support early education initiatives with a view to improving access to education and affording the benefits of education to children living in Ireland. It is recognised that parents play an important role in educating their children and in supporting their children’s participation in formal education. Lone parents with young children face many challenges in supporting their children’s participation in formal education. These challenges are particularly acute for lone parents facing social and economic disadvantage, sometime with low levels of formal education themselves. Policy makers in Ireland have expressed the ambition of affording children in Ireland equal opportunities to access education. It is recognised that to achieve this equality of access and experience for all children can require the provision of additional assistance and support to parents facing social and educational disadvantage. The main focus of this research project is to research the role played by the community education sector in providing educational opportunities to lone parents in Ireland. This sector has been to the fore in the provision of community based education programmes to lone parents of young children (the majority of whom are mothers) facing social and economic disadvantage. The objective is to explore the impact of these education programmes on women’s lives as educational participants, i.e. from their perspective as learners who are also mothers. It includes both in depth case study analysis of selected courses and a longitudinal study of student mothers (capturing learner feedback from participation in programmes at the point of beginning, during and completing the programme in the period spanning September 2021 to September 202