Learning from Youth in Alternative Programs: Transforming Schooled Histories into a Reimagined School for Education

Abstract

Young people attending alternative programs often have histories of schooling shaped by inequities; both leave negative traces on learning and identities. Collectively, they share the experience of early school leaving and limited options for high school completion in alternative programs. The purpose of this article is to describe process-oriented qualitative research informed by an Indigenist paradigm that engaged young people, both non-Indigenous and Indigenous students, in transforming their schooled histories to re-imagine a school for education and, ultimately, to build a 3-D foam core model of the school they imagined. Drawing on cultural-historical theory, three themes were generated from the data: 1) “Fit in or else”: Institutionalizing children in schools; 2) Alternative programs: The contradictions of care, exclusion, and stigma; and 3) Re-imagining school for education: Insights into relational learning and teaching. The school for education was founded upon a notion of student-teacher relationships as proleptic: as building from the past in the present to create social futures. Conclusions—with implications for schooling and education more broadly—make visible the significance of attending to inequities in the past and present, and how they may differ for non-Indigenous and Indigenous students, in the process of imagining social futures.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval for this research was obtained from the Behavioral Research Ethics Board at the University of British Columbia (H15-03039).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC Grant #767-2014-2383).