Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 60, No. 3, 2004, pp. 507--522 Children and Socio-Cultural Divisions in Northern Ireland Karen Trew ∗ Queen’s University Belfast This article focuses on young children and those in middle childhood. It explores the strengths and weaknesses of competing explanations and methodologies employed in research on the developing child’s awareness and understanding of intergroup relations in Northern Ireland. The review highlights the ethical and methodological constraints involved in research into a sensitive topic and the strengths of a social psychological analysis that takes account of both the cognitive development of the child and their cultural setting. Conflict in Northern Ireland can be understood as occurring between two ethnic groups with religion as a socially determined boundary or marker. Early attempts to study children’s understanding of these sectarian divisions focused on children’s developing ability to discriminate between Catholic and Protestant groups (Cairns, 1987). Recent research on sectarianism, children, and community relations from a sociological perspective (Connolly, 2003; Connolly & Healy, 2003; Connolly, Smith, & Kelly, 2002) has widened the focus of study to include the child’s developing awareness of ritualized events and symbols that mark group identities. The emergent findings from this perspective challenge the previously uncontested assumption that in Northern Ireland children become attuned to the important ethnic divisions in their social world more gradually than those growing up in societies in which boundaries are marked by obvious physical differences (Cairns, 1987; Cairns, Wilson, Gallagher, & Trew, 1995; Trew, 1992). This article explores the strengths and weaknesses of competing explana- tions and methodologies employed in research on the developing child’s aware- ness and understanding of intergroup relations in Northern Ireland. It adopts a ∗ Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Karen Trew, School of Psychology, Queen’s University of Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland, UK [e-mail: k.trew@qub.ac.uk]. 507 C  2004 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues