DCU Educational Disadvantage Centre has received funding from Daughters of Charity Community Services, Henrietta St., Dublin 1 towards a 5 year part-time Ph.D fellowship. Applications are now invited, deadline March 2nd 2026.
The Ph.D theme will involve A phenomenological study of Community Based Services to inform an effective policy response to the effects of intergenerational poverty on education. The research data will be collected from two sites, the Daughters of Charity Community Services, Henrietta St. Dublin 1 and another Community Based Service.
The starting point will be an inquiry into to the lived experiences of individuals and families navigating intergenerational poverty and systemic disadvantage in an inner city context who avail of the service and the experience of those who are involved in providing the service. This study aims to uncover the meanings and perceptions that participants ascribe to their encounters in and with a community based service with a multidimensional approach. By focusing on the embodied realities, emotional landscapes, and everyday negotiations of those engaged with a multidimensional approach, the research will illuminate how such a model is experienced as either transformative or insufficient in disrupting cycles of deprivation. Central to this inquiry is the question of how dignity, agency, and relational trust emerge—or fail to emerge—within the holistic space of a consolidated service environment.
Based on this study the project will identify the critical enablers of an effective multidimensional implementation including ethos, people, processes and systems with a view to informing national policy.
The research fellowship is part of a wider Joint Research Group involving DCU Educational Disadvantage Centre, the University of Malta and the Maltese Ministry for Education.
