Within this essay I plan to discuss education inequality amongst travellers by comparing and contrasting both economic and cultural accounts. It is common amongst both traveller boys and girls to leave school early as young as the age of eleven for many various reasons such as culture and family attitudes, In a report ‘Traveller Children and Education’ gives us good insight into statistics which represent the amount of travellers who leave school early ‘’Figures from the last census reveal that there were 23,681 Travellers in Ireland (11,708 males and 11,973 females), representing approximately 0.6% of the total population. Of the 7,000 Travellers who answered the question indicating the age at which they ceased their fulltime education, 66% …show more content…
The reason for why this is happening is because It is difficult for traveller parents who are living on halting sites and many in unsatisfactory conditions which are located well away from the main urban districts and with a high lack of public transport to commute to and from schools.
Cultural Accounts
Economic and Cultural accounts on the topic of Traveller education inequalities are very some what different but they can be compared to. Traveller Culture plays a huge role on the education that Travellers receive in life, Travellers Culture stems from an ancient nomadic tradition and has a rich history of music, values customs and beliefs ''a group recognised by themselves and others as distinct. This distinctive life-style and culture, based on a nomadic tradition, sets them apart from the settled population''(Stationary Office,2005). Through an economic account perspective we see that because Travellers do not commit to the normal mainstream of continuing through school and because their culture is very different from our own we believe that the best way to cure this is through the need for more education. Although school can benefit learning habits and ones values it can also limit the opportunities for some through the