Ireland's Department of Education has come under pressure to drop a Junior Cycle textbook containing "absurdly misconceived and discriminatory" depictions of an Irish family from the school curriculum.
The Health and Wellbeing book is part of the Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) curriculum and is taught to children between first and third year.
But politicians across the spectrum have criticised the depiction of family under a section entitled "All Different, All Equal," which contrasts a "traditional Irish family" with another from a mixed background.
The Irish family – depicted outside a thatched cottage and all wearing Aran jumpers – eat "potatoes, bacon and cabbage every day," "do not like change or difference" and the children "get told off if we mix with people with a different religion from ours as they would be a bad influence on us."
"We do not like change or difference."
In contrast, the mixed-race family "love change and difference," eat "curry, pizza and Asian food" and spend their time travelling internationally and visiting art galleries.
"We love change and difference."
As schools returned last week, Independent TD Carol Nolan said she was contacted by dozens of parents seeking "to have the offending material immediately removed from classrooms."
The Laois-Offaly deputy said: "At first, I thought this was some kind of parody but astonishingly this is not the case.
"These images and texts are being presented to our children with a grim and disgusting seriousness that is bewildering to me and many, many others. Anyone with an ounce of objectivity looking at these descriptions involving an 'Irish family' will immediately grasp the utterly absurd, hateful and sneering attitude that has been adopted.
"The typical traditional 'Irish family' is lampooned as insular, angry, petty and, let’s be honest here, xenophobic and racist, while the contrasting family in the presentation is apparently filled with outward-looking insight, tolerance and intelligence."
She added: "It is almost inconceivable how this trash made its way into a Junior Cycle textbook. This depiction is entirely wrong-headed and must be removed. The (not-so-subtle) messaging here is that any preference for your own culture’s music and sport, for example, is now being depicted a marker for racism. This is extremely dangerous territory."
Ms. Nolan, who sits on the Oireachtas Education Committee, said she wants answers as to how the material was approved for the Junior Cycle curriculum, adding that it was "about as disconnected from the reality of what parents want their children to be taught as it is possible to get."
Thanks to The Irish Daily Mail for covering parental concerns re SPHE Programme.. no doubt this programme has been influenced by overpaid and irrelevant NGO’s who should not be interfering with any aspect of our Education System pic.twitter.com/BH1EFU2TMg
— Carol Nolan TD (@CNolanOffaly) September 3, 2024
The book was also condemned by politicians on the left.
Social Democrats education spokesman Gary Gannon called for it to be removed from the curriculum and described it as a ‘pathetic’ attempt to teach inclusivity.
He told the Irish Daily Mail it should be removed from circulation "immediately," adding: "I don’t even want to give the topic more credence but it is an incredibly badly written piece of work that seems to force children into expressing some degree of support for a monoculture or bizarre type of other family.
"I’m not sure it is in any way applicable to the real world and whoever came up with the concept and approved it has no sense of what any family looks like in Ireland."
He continued: "It is a reflection of a department that is out of touch and striving to be interesting but are failing the children when that’s what they are offering around inclusivity. They should go back to the drawing board. It’s pathetic.
"I don’t know where the learnings are in that piece of work. It defies belief that it was let into the classroom – forcing a child to choose which monoculture they prefer, there’s no learning in that."
Mr. Gannon said that while Irish children have embraced inclusivity this text did nothing to aid or improve it.
"It should be withdrawn from the curriculum," he reiterated.
Historian and author Dr. Conor Reidy described the illustrations and accompanying texts as "disturbing" and said there was subliminal messaging at play which equated traditional Irish culture as something racist and closed off to others.
Dr. Reidy argued that this book "risks shaping young minds with a particular agenda, rather than encouraging their independent thought."
He added: "There is something very, very troubling at work in this SPHE book. Basic education school textbooks should aim to provide an impartial education, and students need access to balanced information so that they can develop.
"Students need access to balanced information so that they can develop critical thinking skills and form their own opinions.
"If a textbook is biased, it risks shaping young minds with a particular agenda, rather than encouraging their independent thought. This is crushing their independent thought."
He added: "The cartoon that goes with it is disgusting. It’s absolutely despicable in how it depicts the traditional Irish family. It is very shocking. It’s very disturbing, to say the least.
"I think people should be upset by this. Crucially, the parents in Family A [the ‘traditional’ Irish family] are depicted as controlling and authoritarian and then we have – because the parents are dictating to the children that they can’t mix, that they can’t do that – what I would call the subconscious hand grenade here.
"The children are not permitted to mix with their peers from other cultures and traditions and this is where the subliminal messaging enters, because that control, that authoritarianism, that racism is spelled out in the same case study in the same paragraph as a list of Irish traditions, such as music, film, sports, television. The link is established. The family that embraces tradition can only be seen as racist and anti-diversity. So this, to me, is a clear attempt to link the concept of traditionalism with racism and intolerance."
The text states the Family A does not like change and that all their relatives are Irish. They are not allowed to play "foreign games" or watch television or movies that were produced outside of Ireland. At the end of the paragraph, the description reads: "We get told off if we mix with people with a different religion from ours as they would be a bad influence on us."
Meanwhile, on Family B, it states: "During school holidays we go camping in Europe and visit the galleries to see the wonderful paintings there. We like different types of music from reggae and hip hop to classical.
"We have relations in London and Australia and our family is part Irish, part Romanian and part Dutch."
The Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.
Edco, the publishers of the book, were also contacted but no response was received by the time of publication.
*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.
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