Talk and transfer: how parents' discourse about the Northern Ireland transfer tests constructs an ideological dilemma

The main purpose is to extend current knowledge by contributing detailed insights into the views of parents who are engaging with the system. Seeking to examine both what parents said about the transfer tests and how they said it, two distinct qualitative analyses were conducted on the transcript of a single group discussion between five parents of Year 7 children taking the tests in November 2019.

The results of a constructionist thematic analysis highlight the complexities within parents’ perspectives as they balanced uncomfortable choices made in the name of good parenting against the intensity of their children’s distress throughout the extended, high-stakes process. Then, seeking to explain how such distress is discursively justified and maintained within everyday conversational practices, a critical discourse analysis frames the complexities as an ideological dilemma, for which the group lacked discursive resources to resolve.