Completing the Story: Connecting relational and psychological processes of exclusion

Abstract

This paper explores how my understanding of and approach to investigating youth transitions and social exclusion, shifted when conducting a case study about Ray, a mature student in transition from a further education college. Having relayed the findings of a study about Ray's experiences of social exclusion, I will discuss the events and reconsiderations that prompted a change in my relationship with Ray. I will reveal how I began to know Ray is his own right, and grasp his feelings and views about his life, and show how this caused Ray to become a participator in and not merely the subject of the study about his life. This (methodological) reconsideration prompted me to perceive my original relationship with Ray in exactly the same way as I had understood his relationships with his mother, his lecturers and with officials--a relationship between the barer of 'expertise' and the subject of this knowledge. The paper will conclude that the new, closer relationship Ray and I developed enhanced the validity and the richness of my understanding of his social exclusion.