Ireland has a distinct and complex history regarding the education of persons with special educational needs (SEN) and in its approach to inclusion. Special and general education largely developed in parallel and separately. As recently as the 1990s, legal actions by parents seeking educational rights for children with severe disabilities prompted appropriate provision for these students and a shift towards inclusive schools. The Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs (EPSEN) Act set out important changes – although not all implemented – followed by a series of changes in resource allocation, culminating in the removal of the requirement for students to be diagnosed in order to access supports. International evidence suggests that resource allocation based on learners’ profile and SEN diagnosis have been linked to the overidentification of SEN students. Ability to pay for private assessments has also been shown to exacerbate inequality in Ireland and beyond. We examine how Ireland's policy changes are impacting on schools and students, drawing on emerging evidence. We consider concerns over the adequacy of teacher professional development, the intended and potentially unintended consequences from a process of ‘domestication’ at the school level and ultimately whether the changes are accompanied by sufficient and appropriate accountability measures.

Internationalization of higher education has increased the diversity of the student body at higher education institutions. There is evidence that the experiences of international students vary according to their region of origin, but trends on a larger scale remain underexamined. Drawing on Eurostudent VI data from the Republic of Ireland, this article investigates how academic satisfaction varies between students from different global regions of origin and from national settings with distinct cultural distance characteristics. Results suggest that international students have higher levels of academic satisfaction than Irish students, but that differences between students from diverse regions of origin persist. In addition, international students originating from a national context with high power distance, irrespective of levels of individualism, have higher levels of academic satisfaction compared with Irish students. Furthermore, self-perception of being a detached customer rather than an equal partner in education has the strongest association with academic satisfaction, suggesting that commercialization trends affect both international and domestic students.

Do employers prioritize university prestige above an applicant’s skills in the hiring process? To distinguish between the effect of human capital in the hiring process from the effect of the name of the graduating university—while controlling for networking effects—2,400 fictitious applications were submitted to IT and accounting jobs in the US, UK, and Australia. The resumes belonged to fictitious citizens, both female and male. For each sector of the labor market, two resumes were designed. One resume had a high skills match with the generic requirements of entry level jobs in each sector. A second resume had a low skills match with the same requirements. For each country, one high-ranked university and one non-high-ranked university were selected to signal prestige. The name of the graduating university and the sex of the applicant were randomly assigned on otherwise identical resumes. High skills match applications were 79 percent more likely to receive a callback than low skills match applications. University prestige and sex were not statistically significant predictors of callbacks. These findings suggest that human capital, and not university prestige, predicts callback outcomes in skill intensive sectors of the labor market for entry-level applicants with a bachelor’s degree.

Reflecting the neglect of childhood disability in social stratification research, there is a notable dearth of research on the mechanisms underpinning disability differentials in educational outcomes. Drawing on rich longitudinal data collected at 9, 13 and 17 years as part of Ireland's ‘Growing Up in Ireland’ study, we look at the impact of special educational needs (SEN) identification in primary school on upper secondary outcomes. A bioecological framework and the Process–Person–Context–Time model allow us to understand how interactions with family, teachers, friends and school—as proximal processes—relate to early school leaving and post‐school planned pathways after accounting for personal and context characteristics. Overall, young people identified at age 9 as having SEN are at increased risk of early school leaving and are more likely to plan to attend further education and training, rather than higher education. However, after accounting for proximal processes and personal and context variables, students identified at age 9 as having SEN are no longer distinct in terms of secondary attainment and post‐school planning. Instead, these young people are more likely to experience forms of vulnerability that are important in shaping these outcomes. These key educational outcomes are strongly shaped by family and school‐related factors—both proximal processes and context characteristics—suggesting that efforts to support retention and pathway planning should be underpinned by an ecological understanding of young people's trajectories and the cumulative disadvantages they face.

The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in significant disruptions to both international student mobility and labour markets. Against this background, this scoping review documents findings from 35 studies, published between January 2020 and February 2024, that focused on international student mobility, Covid-19, labour market outcomes, and related regulations. The review shows that the Covid-19 pandemic negatively impacted (1) the labour market outcomes of international students before studying abroad, through changes in visa regulations, (2) skill acquisition during their mobility, (3) the duration of their studies, and (4) the availability of jobs during and after their mobility period. These negative impacts occurred at a time when international students’ needs for work were heightened. This ‘double whammy’ was more pronounced among international students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, increasing pre-existing inequalities. It was also affected by students’ residency status and policy changes. These findings underline the critical role that temporality plays in shaping the returns to international student mobility. However, the existing literature on the topic is relatively sparse and has primarily relied upon qualitative approaches and rapid research. Future studies are needed to better understand the impact of Covid-19 on the labour market outcomes of international students.

Existing research paints a mixed picture of how international students fare academically following a transition to a host higher education institution. Most studies that have examined differences between domestic and international students’ engagement treated international students as a homogenous group. Less evidence is available on the experiences of international students from different regional groups. Drawing on Irish Student Engagement Survey data, this article explores the extent to which international students’ engagement differs from that of their Irish peers, and whether there are differences across regions of origin. The findings indicate that while international students are highly engaged compared to their Irish counterparts, regional differences persist when the data were disaggregated. The paper is of potential interest to policymakers and higher education institutions, offering insights into how the provision of services and supports to international students could be better targeted.