A major educational study has shown that sectarianism in Northern Ireland would be defused if children attended integrated schools.

Psychologists from the University of Ulster spoke to more than 1,700 children at Catholic, State and integrated schools, over a nine year period, and found that children in ‘mixed’ environment education had more contact and understanding of one another’s religion and culture.

The study was funded by The European Union Special Support Programme and the findings have been published in the British Journal of Education Psychology.

The study was led by Maurice Stringer, a professor in psychology at the university’s Coleraine campus. He said that the report provided support for educating Protestants and Catholics together as a means of creating cross-community friendships and moderating political attitudes in a divided society.

The report pointed out that just 6% of Northern Ireland’s 330,000 children — a total of just under 20,000 — currently attend integrated schools, an increase of around 600 from the previous year.

Professor Stringer said that teachers in mixed schools can find it difficult to build a school ethos or challenge segregated attitudes. But he added that the results of the study showed that allowing children to mix and become friends in a supportive school environment was enough to produce change.

“We found that if you have structured activities organised by a teacher, they don’t have the same impact,” said the professor.

“When creating a friendship, it’s important that the children did it by themselves, such as choosing who they sit next to in the cafeteria\[Chris Cairns\]. Teachers would be better off facilitating contact rather than structuring things.”

Graduate Suzie Smyth — who attended Forge Integrated Primary and Lagan College — Northern Ireland’s first integrated school which opened in 1981 — said that the schools nurtured an open attitude towards other religions.

“My parents grew up in the Troubles, but were very liberal and didn’t have strong religious views,” she said. “My dad, an accountant, worked with people who were setting up integrated school so I was sent to one.

"My parents didn’t want their children to retain the attitudes of the past.”

Northern Ireland, the report concluded, remains a highly segregated society with between 35%-45% of Protestants and Catholics living in segregated areas, reflected by the fact that 94% attend one-religion schools.

It also transpired that 800 children a year are unable to gain places in integrated schools because new facilities are not being built.