Education and School Exclusion: A Community Psychological Perspective

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Education and School Exclusion A Community
Psychological Perspective

• Rachael Fox
• PhD Student
• Department of Psychology

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Education and School Exclusion

• Overview of phenomenon
• Problem from a CP perspective
• Next weeks lecture
• Putting Community Psychology into practise
• My research
• Participatory Action Research

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Social Causes
School Exclusion Fixed term suspension
or Permanent expulsion
Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties
Learning Difficulties
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Nature of Education
Media
Parents
Young Person
Other pupils
Teachers
School
Society
Representations of young people
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Government
Education Authorities
Schools
Parents
Young people
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Some CP Principles

• Societal Causes
• Power Relationships
• Social Justice
• Person in Context
• Multi-Level Approach
• Prevention
• Subjectivity
• Critical Theory
• Praxis

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Assumptions About Young People

• Part of the context and subjectivity of our
  society
• Adults know whats best
• Adults should exert control
• No ability to exert self control or to make
  informed, reasoned decisions
• State (government) must uphold this control

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There is a vociferous and influential lobby
amongst politicians, the media and large sections
of the general public who would argue that it is
not appropriate to give rights to children, that
the balance has swung too far in that direction,
and that it is more important to give greater
focus to the teaching of social responsibility.
Children are widely portrayed as irresponsible,
incompetent, lacking morality, out of control and
without the experience on which to draw for
affective participation.Lansdown, G. (1995).
Childrens rights to participation and
protection a critique. In Cloke, C and Davies,
M (Eds). Participation and Empowerment in Child
Protection. Pg 21.
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http//www.womensrefuge.org.nz/understand02.asp
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Secondary Schools

• Rules are often controlling and sometimes without
  logic
• Young people have no outlets to complain about
  staff or school (unlessstaff/school have broken
  law)
• Young people are not consulted when decisions are
  made

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Richard Shaull, (1996). In Freire, Paulo.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Pg 12

• His early sharing of the life of the poor also
  lead him to the discovery of what he describes as
  the culture of silence of the dispossessed. He
  came to realise that their ignorance and lethargy
  were the direct product of the whole situation of
  economic, social and political domination and
  of the paternalism of which they were victims.
  Rather than being encouraged and equipped to know
  and respond to the concrete realities of the
  world, they were kept submerged in a situation
  in which such critical awareness and response
  were practically impossible. And it became clear
  to him that the whole educational system was one
  of the major instruments for the maintenance of
  this culture of silence.

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Praxis
Action Changing things, doing
things, putting into practice

• Reflection
• Critical thinking, reasoning, planning.

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Participatory Action Research

• Participatory Action Research is not just about
  research (measuring or defining a situation) nor
  just about consultation (giving people the chance
  to express their views).
• It may involve both these activities, but it is
  also a developmental process in which both
  researchers and participants contribute to
  resolving the issue in question by proposing
  solutions and when possible, testing whether
  their proposed solutions would work.
• It involves challenging our own assumptions and
  testing the things we take for granted

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Banking Concept of Education
Narration, (with the teacher as narrator) leads
the students to memorise mechanically the
narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into
containers, into receptacles to be filled
by the teacher. The more completely she fills
the receptacles, the better a teacher she is.
The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves
to be filled, the better the students are.
Freire, Paulo. (1996). Pedagogy of the
Oppressed. Pg53
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Conclusions

• Our idea of how young people should be treated is
  unjust, and leads to hostility. This is
  ultimately a higher level cause of school
  exclusion
• Our idea of how we should educate people is in
  essence oppressive. If we could somehow change
  it we would dramatically improve the wellbeing of
  young people

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http//www.womensrefuge.org.nz/understand02.asp