You Can't Be What You Can't See
This chapter presents the policy, practice, and societal contexts of initial teacher education in Ireland as a backdrop to the TOBAR programme. Primary teaching in Ireland is a high status and high demand profession, yet the teaching body is predominately white, female, and Catholic. In recent years, in response to changes in Irish society, and in initial teacher education and higher education policy, new initiatives have been introduced to diversify the teaching body. In the second section of this chapter, the authors present an overview of one such initiative: the TOBAR programme. The TOBAR programme supports Irish travellers to participate in initial teacher education programmes. Drawing on a series on interviews with students on the TOBAR programme, the authors report that the programme is having a positive impact on the students but that many challenges and barriers still exist.