School Exclusion
: personal, political and social narratives

  • Chiara Tuckett

Student thesis: PsychD

Abstract

Aim: Research indicates that school exclusion, mental health, and the broader systemic and sociopolitical context are inextricably linked. However, there is currently a paucity of literature that attempts to understand this relationship, and no literature that seeks the perspectives of adults who were themselves excluded from school. This thesis responds to this absence by analysing how adults who were excluded from school negotiate different social, political and cultural narratives about exclusion and excluded children.
Method: First, a genealogically informed review of school exclusion was undertaken to understand the broader social systems within which excluded children exist. Next, one-to-one, semi-structured, qualitative interviews following the Biographical Narrative Interview Method (BNIM) were completed with six adults who were excluded from school. Narrative analysis was used to identify the master narratives that these adults were subject to and how those master narratives were negotiated.
Results: The genealogically informed review suggested that school exclusion has been constructed as a function of what Foucault (1982) terms ‘normalising’, and that children are excluded when they are perceived to be a threat to the status quo because they do not conform to social norms. In accordance with this, the narrative analysis found that individual differences in children’s life experience are rendered invisible by the power and ubiquity of master narratives. It also found that excluded children must negotiate being positioned as problem bearers; and in the context of these difficulties, a redemption narrative was one way to make sense of the experience of school exclusion.
Implications: These results indicate that school exclusion is a mental health issue, but because it is not seen as such, excluded children are left to manage their psychological difficulties alone. This suggests that Counselling Psychologists have an important role to play in contributing to the construction of a psychologically minded approach to school exclusion.
Date of Award12 Dec 2024
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • University of Roehampton
SupervisorPaul Dickerson (Director of Studies) & Tony Evans (Co-Supervisor)

Keywords

  • Exclusion
  • kicked out
  • school exclusion
  • suspended
  • permanent exclusion
  • expulsion
  • fixed term exclusion
  • excluded
  • expelled

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