Alternative provision as an educational option: understanding the experiences of excluded young people

Abstract

Alternative provision schooling is an important and on‐going part of our education system. Annually around 45,000 pupils are educated in alternative provision schools and despite the existence in general of an underpinning rationale of inclusion this number does not seem to be diminishing. In fact, when New Labour focussed on and were successful in getting the number of pupils excluded from schooling down, over the same time period the number of pupils based in pupil referral units (PRUs are considered a type of alternative provision) increased significantly. Given the intransigent nature of the problem of mainstream schooling being unable to cater for all pupils there is a need to think deeply about and theorise effectively the field of alternative provision schooling. In addition to the perennial nature of the problem, the characteristics of pupils, the experiences they are more likely to have had, and the destinations and the outcomes they are more likely than the average young person to experience there is a moral imperative to develop positive and effective practice in this field. This thesis set out to explore two questions. These were the nature of alternative provision, and the effect of this kind of schooling on the young people who attend. Methods used included a survey of providers, qualitative interviews with a sub sample of this group, in‐depth life history interviews with 18 young adults and further qualitative interviews with key professionals. In doing this an articulation of mainstream and alternative provision schooling as distinct fields (using Bourdieu’s field theory) has been developed. This analysis underpins a model of the types of experience of pupils who end up marginalised and excluded from mainstream schooling and of likely trajectories of success for each of these pupil experience types. The dominant habitus in mainstream schooling necessitates that pupils internalise insignificance and inferiority in the pupil teacher relationship. In alternative provision the dominant habitus is a relationally mediated equality which influences pupils in a number of ways connected to the experiences which have led to their exclusion from mainstream schooling.