Session Information
07 SES 09 B, Social Justice, Drop Out, Migration
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper is concerned with the types of learning that young people in the UK and Australia receive in alternative education provision. This is a concern that has relevance to the European context as demonstrated in publications such as the UK National Foundation for Educational Research’s International Evidence on Alternative Provision. In this paper we are asking if the curriculum experienced by young people in alternative education is one that opens up future possibilities or closes down such possibilities. We also ask if such curricula take into account the lived realities of young people and do not simply treat them as future citizens and workers. As the alternative school sector develops and grows, a key objective of our research is to ensure that this pathway does not become an educational dead-end for those students who have already been marginalised by a schooling sector that is unable,or unwilling, to address their particular needs. We also contextualise our paper within the current political climate.
Recently, in Australia and other nations of the global North there have been growing concerns about youth attainment and schooling completion. Typically, governments and other agencies have attempted to address this problem via the provision of transitional educational programs. With some exceptions, a review of the curricula making up such programs exposes a focus on literacy, numeracy and vocational options. Clearly these skills are necessary for economic participation in society. However, if such competencies and training are considered sufficient education for these, usually marginalized and disadvantaged, young people it could be argued that this may also condemn them to a lifetime of political and social marginalisation despite their ability to get a job. From a social justice perspective, the type of curriculum available to young people matters.
Schools tend to reproduce a society’s power structures and young people who have access to rich sources of cultural and economic capital are more likely to be exposed to what educational theorist, Michael Young (2008) calls ‘powerful knowledge’; knowledge that facilitates critical interrogation of societies, their histories and power structures. Such knowledge expedites the development of a political consciousness such as that advocated by Paulo Freire (1990), who stridently opposed a ‘banking’ model of education within which students are passive recipients of predetermined content. With respect to the young people frequently categorised as educational ‘failures’, the risk of receiving a predetermined diminished curriculum is considerable.
In this paper, we take up Nancy Fraser’s (1997) three-fold theoretical framework of social justice as built on principles of distribution, recognition and representation, to interrogate the notion of curricular justice in alternative schooling options. Drawing on data collected from the UK and Australia, we explore the ways in which some alternative educational sites and programs are working to (re)/engage young people in schooling by ensuring distributive, recognitive and representational forms of justice within the context of addressing inequities of access to relevant and powerful domains of knowledge via pedagogies that facilitate meaning and relevance for young people. This analysis serves to elucidate tensions inherent in currently popular official instrumentalist initiatives to retain young people in education.
Educational philosopher, Gert Biesta (2014) makes a distinction between education and training, associating ‘education’ with processes that are unpredictable, difficult to quantify and fundamental to personal freedom. We are concerned that the current official preoccupation with schooling retention ignores the social justice implications of a diminished curriculum that fails to provide young people with the meaningful learning necessary for full democratic participation in the global and national contexts of the 21st century.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Aron, L.Y. 2006. An Overview of Alternative Education. The Urban Institute: Washington D.C. Biesta, G. 2014. Pragmatising the curriculum: bringing knowledge back into the curriculum conversation, but via pragmatism, The Curriculum Journal, 25:1, 29-49 Connell, R. W. 1993. Schools and social justice. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Evans, J., Meyer, D., Pinney, A., and Robinson, B. 2009. Second chances: Re-engaging young people in education and training. Essex: Barnardo's. Fraser, N. 1997. Justice interruptus: critical reflections on the "postsocialist" condition. New York: Routledge. Freire, P. 1990. Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Gable, R. A., Bullock, L. M. and Evans, W. H. 2006. Changing perspectives on alternative schooling for children and adolescents with challenging behavior. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 51(1), 5-9. Gallagher, E. 2010. The second chance school. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 15(4), 445-459. Harper, A., Heron, M., Houghton E., O'Donnell S. and Sargent C. 2011. International Evidence on Alternative Provision (INCA Thematic Probe). Slough: NFER. Kilpatrick, R., McCartan, C. and McKeown, P. 2007. Out of the box: Alternative education provision (AEP) in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland: Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency. Kim, J-H and Taylor, K. A. 2008. Rethinking alternative education to break the cycle of educational inequality and inequity. The Journal of Educational Research, 101(4), 207-219. Mills, M. and McGregor, G. 2014. Re-engaging young people in education: Learning from alternative schools. Routledge: London. Ogg, T. and Kaill, E. (2010) A New Secret Garden? Alternative Provision, Exclusion and Children’s Rights. Civitas: London, UK. Raywid, M.A. 1999. History and issues of alternative schools. The Education Digest, 64(9), 47-51. Ross, S. and Gray, J. 2005. Transitions and re-engagement through second chance education. Australian Educational Researcher, 32(3), 103-140. Te Riele, K. 2006. Youth ‘at risk’: further marginalizing the marginalized? Journal of Educational Policy, 21(2), 129-145. Te Riele, K. (Ed.). 2009. Making Schools Different: Alternative Approaches to Educating Young People. SAGE publications: London. Thomson, P. and Russell, L. 2007. Mapping the alternatives to permanent exclusion. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Wrigley, T., Thomson, P. and Lingard, B. eds., 2011. Changing schools: Alternative models making a world of difference. London: Routledge. Yates, L. and Grumet, M. (eds) 2011. Curriculum in today’s world: configuring knowledge, identities, work and politics: World year book of education. London and New York: Routledge. Young, M. 2008. Bringing knowledge back in: From social constructivism to social realism in the sociology of education. London: Routledge.
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