This edited book explores the origins and evolution of the early childhood education and care (ECEC) system on the island of Ireland since the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1921. While the book acknowledges and celebrates the role of parents in caring for and educating their young children within the home, the key focus is on the provisions outside the home for children from birth to six years. It critiques the historical and contemporary provision under a number of key themes including curriculum, the policy and legislative landscapes, inspection and regulation, Irish language provision and professionalisation. Written by key experts and actors from the sector, it makes a unique contribution to the existing literature by bringing together in one collection a critical analysis of the key themes relating to the development of ECEC in Ireland. Moreover, signposts and signals for the future development of the sector are integral to the book.

This book critically examines the context, origins, development and implementation of successive primary school curricula in Ireland between 1897 and 1990. It focuses on three particular policy changes during the period: the Revised Programme of Instruction introduced in 1900, the curricular provisions implemented following the achievement of independence in the 1920s and the Primary School Curriculum of 1971. These three eras are distinctive by virtue of their philosophy of education, the content of the curriculum, the methodologies employed and the concept of the child inherent in the curriculum. The author analyses curricular changes within the complex web of wider educational and societal factors that influenced their devising and implementation. In this way, he locates curricular developments within the climate of thought from which these policies emerged. The philosophy and ideology underpinning successive curricula are examined, along with the successes and shortcomings of curriculum implementation in each period. This historical analysis of the evolution of the primary curriculum in Ireland has much to offer researchers and policymakers in the contemporary context, amid ongoing curriculum development.

This third edition of Visual Fields: Examination and Interpretation contains revisions and updates of earlier material as well as a discussion of newer techniques for assessing visual field disorders. The book begins with a short history of the field of perimetry and goes on to present basic clinical aspects of examination and diagnosis of visual field defects in the optic nerve, optic disc, chorioretina, optic chiasm, optic tract, lateral geniculate field bodies, and the calcarine complex. Additional aspects of visual field examination are explored including those of monocular, binocular, and junctional field defects, congruity vs. incongruity, macular sparing vs. macular splitting, density, wedge-shaped homonymous field loss, and monocular temporal crescent. Various new techniques of automated perimetry are also considered including SITA, FASTPAC, and SWAP. In all, this volume provides a very useful overview of the techniques, both old and new, of visual field examination in a multiplicity of eye disorders and as such will be of interest to all ophthalmologists, neuro-opthalmologists, retina specialists, and optomestrist.

Much as an ancient hymnist carries a familiar subject into new directions of song, the contributors to "A Californian Hymn to Homer" draw upon Homeric scholarship as inspiration for pursuing new ways of looking at texts, both within the Homeric tradition and outside it. This set of seven original essays, accompanied by a new translation of the Homeric "Hymn to Apollo," considers topics that transcend traditional generic distinctions between epic and lyric, choral and individual, performed and literary. Treating subjects ranging from Aeschylus' reception of Homeric anger to the representation of mantic performance within Early Islamic texts, the collection presents a selection of imaginative critical work done on the West Coast by scholars of antiquity.