Positive alternatives to exclusion
May 2002
Introduction
What is being done by schools to reduce and avoid the social and formal exclusion of specific groups of pupils?
To read a one-page summary of this RoM, go to the overview.
This month, the ‘Research of the month’ team have looked at a study that was set up amid increasing national concern about the growing number of pupils, including primary school pupils, who are permanently excluded from school. The authors recognised the position of many teachers whose unions were demanding protection for their members and for pupils by excluding unruly pupils from mainstream schools. The authors believed that the many teachers did not see exclusion as an acceptable solution to the problems posed by the most challenging students. These teachers were looking for alternative solutions which nevertheless dealt effectively with their concerns about antisocial and disruptive behaviour.
Most research to date has focused upon the causes of disaffection rather than strategies for preventing or responding to it. It is a very complex field of enquiry and practice and it has not therefore been possible to find a largescale quantitative evidence-base. In this study the authors report the findings of the positive alternatives to exclusion (PASE) case study research and development project.
In this study the authors’ concern is not just with formal exclusion but with preempting it. In this context the focus of their research is on the identification and development of processes that counteract the forces that seem to propel pupils, not only towards formal exclusion, but also to exclusion from the normal social and educational life of the school.
This broad definition of exclusion includes pupils who are not disruptive but who are passively disengaged from the education process, described by Pye (1988) as ‘invisible’ and by others, such as Oakley (2001) as ‘Rhinos’ (really here in name only).
The study was aimed at generating the understanding a nd practice that could contribute to positive change in the schools involved in the project. The authors wanted to know how these schools viewed the problem of exclusion and what they were doing about it. The case study evidence was at least as strong in identifying difficulties in tackling exclusion as in effecting change. The authors therefore offer both detailed information about possible solutions and about obstacles that may well need to be tackled by teachers as they use and interpret this research.
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