Denominational differences in students’ religious and moral values in Northern Ireland : still worlds apart?

Northern Ireland has been a country deeply divided by the denominational distinction between Catholics and Protestants. The division has been reflected in and supported by separate educational systems for Protestant and Catholic students. According to Murray in the mid-1980s this segregated system of schools resulted in young people growing up ‘worlds apart’. In 1979 Greer initiated a series of empirical enquiries concerning the distinctive religious, moral and social cultures of students educated in the two school systems. The present study builds on research first carried out by Greer in 1984 and extended in 1998 that investigated and compared the religious beliefs and values of students educated in Catholic and Protestant schools. The new data provided by 1,591 students attending Protestant schools and by 1,618 students attending Catholic schools in 2011 demonstrated that there remain some significant and consistent differences in the profiles of the religious and moral values of the two denominational groups. Some of the implications of this finding for accounts of the nature of the process of secularisation and for education and schooling in Northern Ireland are considered