The idea behind the Seamus Heaney Lecture Series, "Perspectives on Equality", on which this book is based, was to provide the opportunity for critical engagement with differing views, analyses and ideas on equality. Contributors to the book are drawn from a range of disciplines - political science, social science, philosophy, education, geography and English - and offer both national and global perspectives. The idea of equality is interrogated and the application of theory in practice is examined. Themes addressed include citizenship and the challenge of diversity; the idea of the child as citizen; the intersecting and interdependent axes of inequality in education; disability, care and human dignity in the context of severe cognitive disability and finally, the necessity for both systemic and personal change in tackling inequality in our society.