Carlile, Anna. 2010. The Causes and Effects of Permanent Exclusion from School: Policy and Practice in an Urban Children's Services Department. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London [Thesis]

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Abstract or Description

This thesis deals with the administration of permanent exclusion from school within an urban children's services department. It focuses on two areas: what contributes to instances of permanent exclusion from school, and what the effects are of its existence as a disciplinary option. I suspected that the existence of permanent exclusion from school might limit the realm of the possible, and I was particularly interested in how and why local government officers made particular decisions about children and young people. In other words, I wondered whether professionals might be negatively affected by the fact that at some point they would have the option of excluding a young person rather than either continuing to try to help them or to attempt to change the institution's approach to educating them. Rather than focusing on what children and young people 'did' behaviourally to 'get excluded', the thesis adopts a Foucauldian analysis to concentrate on their place within a larger 'policy community' which includes professionals and policy makers.

The research was undertaken through an ethnographic methodology conducted within my place of work as a pupil support officer, and the fieldwork itself lasted two years. Because I was participant-observing within a group of local authority staff, and was interested in local government decision-making, I have largely framed my approach as an exercise in `studying up' on powerful organisations. So in order to support an informed approach to ameliorating social inequity, the thesis looks at the ways in which powerful institutions work. This has implications for the `voices' of the young people subject to or at the risk of permanent exclusion from school both in school and in the research.

My findings suggest a broad, deep and opaque seam of institutional prejudice in a range of areas. They point towards the idea that instances of permanent exclusion from school are partially caused or exacerbated by institutional prejudice. Permanent exclusion from school can also be seen to intensify the effects of institutional prejudice.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Educational Studies
Date:	13 July 2010
Item ID:	6396
Date Deposited:	17 Feb 2012 13:28
Last Modified:	08 Sep 2022 11:13
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/6396

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