evidence: Internationally, a long tail of underachievement belies Northern Ireland’s reputation for producing academically high-achieving pupils, indicating a country level problem requiring a Northern Ireland-specific focus. [...] A wide ranging study investigating the links between deprivation and education attainment in Northern Ireland found that young people from areas of high deprivation suffer low self-esteem and lack aspiration as a result of negative community attitudes around education. Parental early experiences of educational failure were also associated with children’s fear of failure, low expectations and negative attitudes to schooling. [...] _______________________ [1] Burns, S., Leitch, R., Hughes, J. (2015) Education Inequalities in Northern Ireland Belfast: Queen’s University Belfast, Harland, K., McCready, S. (2012) Taking Boys Seriously – A Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Male School-Life Experiences in Northern Ireland Bangor: DE and OECD (2015) The ABC of Gender Equality in Education Paris: OECD Publishing