Merike Darmody

Research Officer

Merike Darmody is a Research Officer at the Economic and Social Research Institute. While working mainly in the area of education, she is also interested in broader issues of the relationship between an individual and society. Following MEd in Sociology of Education from University College Dublin (UCD), Merike obtained a PhD in Human Sciences from UCD in 2005. Her PhD research was conducted at School of Education and focussed on school transitions in Ireland and Estonia in comparative perspective. Articles based on this research have subsequently been published in TRAMERS, Journal of Baltic Studies and Research in Comparative and International Education.

Over the years she has worked on a variety topics, including second-level students’ school experiences (a longitudinal study); factors influencing school attendance; guidance and counselling provision in second-level schools; gender differences in take-up of practical subjects in secondary school; study of social and living conditions of higher education students in Ireland; cost of participation in higher education; links between primary school design and teaching and learning; job satisfaction and occupational stress among primary school teachers and principals; governance and funding of second-level schools; and initial teacher education . The findings based on many of these studies have been published in various international journals: Journal of Education and Work; International Journal of Comparative Sociology; Educational Review and many others.

Merike’s more recent work has focussed on ethnic and religious diversity. This body of work includes a study on the integration of migrant students in Irish primary and second-level schools and the provision of religious education. She has published widely in the area. The published work includes an edited volume ‘Changing faces of Ireland, Exploring lives of immigrant and ethnic minority children’; co-authored chapter in International Handbook of Migration, Minorities and Education - Understanding Cultural and Social Differences in Processes of Learning; and articles in various journals including Race, Ethnicity and Education; Power and Education; Irish Educational Studies.

She is a member of an international SIRIUS network that focuses on education of migrant children and youth in Europe. With Prof. Emer Smyth, she co-ordinated a European comparative study on the provision of religious education in a multicultural society (REMC), funded through the EU Seventh Framework Programme involving a consortium of seven partners. An edited volume ‘Religious Education in Multicultural Europe’ by Smyth, E., Lyons, M., Darmody, M. (Eds.) is based on this study. Merike is an Associate Editor of European Sociological Review and a member of editorial board of Estonian Journal of Education.

She is also a member of various professional organisations including Educational Studies Association of Ireland; American Educational Research Association; Children, Migration and Identities Network; International Childhood and Youth Research Network and Sociological Association of Ireland. Merike contributes to the modules Race, Ethnicity and Identity and Social Inequalities at the Department of Sociology (TCD) where she is an adjunct Assistant Professor.