Researching ‘off rolling’ as a sensitive topic: ‘Hard’ evidence and experiential accounts

ABSTRACT

This paper will explore the ways in which behaviour features in the accounts of ‘off rolling’ processes in schools in England volunteered by participants – senior school leaders, SENCos and parents, in an ongoing multi-stranded research project. In addition to analysing these accounts, this paper draws on contextual features and concepts such as parrhesia and authenticity in a probing of methodological considerations. The status of such accounts as data will also be considered given the high stakes accountability environment in which school principals strive to fulfil their legal remit in the field of inclusion. The trustworthiness of findings in qualitative research is more usually the focus of attention; however, our studies to date imply that some professionals carefully manage the image of their school and visibility of exclusionary practices to the detriment of students with mental health and behavioural issues. The methodological implications of conducting research in politicised and highly sensitive areas will be discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• school exclusion
• off rolling
• researching exclusion

Introduction

The exclusion of children and young people from school, primarily on behavioural grounds, is increasing in countries, including England, Australia and the US (Johnson and Sullivan 2016; Graham et al. 2019; Armstrong forthcoming) despite growing evidence of the detrimental consequences, both socially and individually (Parsons and Castle 1998; Daniels et al. 2003; Theriot, Craun, and Dupper 2010). The identification of such trends in exclusion rates relies on official statistical data, although research demonstrates that not all exclusionary practices are recorded as such (Daniels et al. 2020; Power and Taylor 2020). In England, an ongoing research programme that comprises a series of studies related to illegal school exclusions or ‘off rolling’ (Done and Knowler 2020a; 2021a, 2021b;; Done et al. 2021, 2021; Knowler and Done 2020) has confirmed the centrality of behavioural issues in school decision-making around both formal and illegal exclusions. The legal criteria which schools must meet prior to suspending or permanently excluding a student (DfE 2017) include the reporting of ‘persistent disruptive behaviour’ or incidents of physical violence against staff or peers; hence, in the case of legal fixed term and permanent school exclusion, this centrality of behavioural issues is unsurprising. The former features prominently in school exclusion data nationally (DfE 2021); however, a survey commissioned by the national school inspectorate, the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), produced responses from teachers in England that called into question the veracity of official data since, as one respondent explained, internal accounts of poor and ‘disruptive’ behaviour are routinely exaggerated in order to outwardly justify formal exclusion whilst protecting school performance data (YouGov 2019).

Such accounts support a narrative promoted by Ofsted (2019) that illegal exclusionary practices are primarily motivated by an overemphasis in recent years on national examination performance and the associated competitive pressures on schools. This performativity-related narrative (Ball 2003) has deflected attention from varied exclusionary practices that occur across the education system and from other key issues such as disproportionality or the over-representation of specific social groups in official exclusion statistics (Graham et al. 2019). Disproportionality has been documented, for example, in the Timpson Review of formal exclusion in English schools, a government-commissioned report which identified that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEN/D) are particularly affected (DfE 2019). Timpson’s characterisation of illegal exclusion or off rolling as a rare occurrence is contradicted in data collected from parents, SENCs, senior school leaders and educational psychologists (Done and Knowler 2021b; 2021c; Done, Knowler, and Armstrong 2021) which indicates that off rolling is endemic in the English education system.

Disparities

These disparities between official statistical data and anecdotal accounts at interview or in qualitative questionnaire responses are particularly highlighted where the research topic is considered to be sensitive and of limited geographical scope. The YouGov (2019) telephone survey was national in its coverage and respondents were not invited to volunteer any information that might render their school identifiable. In contrast, university-based education-related research undertaken within areas local to the institution in question, or within a specific region of the UK, is likely to prompt fears that a school could be identified, leading to reputational damage and blowback for participants, since university education departments maintain close links with schools for a variety of reasons. Participation in research considered to be sensitive therefore carries a certain professional risk and reluctance to volunteer authentic accounts of events at school level will almost certainly be intensified where specific exclusionary practices are known to be illegal. Additionally, in the case of senior school leaders, participants are likely to be research ‘savvy’ and sensitised to formulaic research and political narratives that identify schools and school staffs as the problem in delivering inclusivity rather than the wider policy and funding context; Ofsted (2010) review, for example, attributed a failure to include children with SEN/D to poor teaching and lack of training schools. Public declarations of commitment to teacher-specific or whole school training can signal a school’s engagement in continual improvement whilst its exclusionary practices are continued and contextual factors are neglected. Responses are, consequently, more difficult to take at face value as they would ordinarily be in descriptive qualitative studies or content analysis (Berg 2001). In the aforementioned study involving senior school leaders (Done and Knowler 2020b), the impression management that has become a feature of neoliberal educational cultures (Ball 2003) was conceived as the management of (in)visibility of practices understood to be illegal and exclusionary. Indeed, in a small number of instances, the responses to hypothetical scenarios (all of which constituted off rolling on legal grounds) that were presented to participants conveyed what might be termed ‘pushback’ against potential ‘teacher blaming’ (Thrupp 2008) and included cynical responses that appeared to be intended to result in calls for more training around off rolling, thus evading responsibility for decision-making in this area. In this and similar research then, the move from content to thematic analysis thus raised issues around legitimate inference.

Traditionally, the issue of trustworthiness and credibility is discussed in relation to qualitative study findings (Lincoln and Guba 1985) as a matter of validity and legitimate knowledge claims. It is not usual to question the authenticity of responses prior to analysis and, yet, the data collected in this study of senior school leaders’ perspectives on off rolling underlined both the danger of reliance on official, quantitative and statistically valid, data and the problems that can arise in researching sensitive topics through qualitative methods where prevalence is as yet undetermined or that determination is problematic for a variety of reasons. Triangulation, as in the use of mixed methods and comparison of data derived from qualitative and quantitative methods, is often looked to as a means of enhancing the validity of study findings whilst providing a more comprehensive or nuanced analysis (Cohen et al. 2018). In later research into the strategic role of special educational needs coordinators (SENCos) during the first Covid-19 induced lockdown and partial opening of English schools with particular reference to exclusion and disproportionality, in-depth semi-structured interviewing was combined with a national online survey that was designed to provide an overview of exclusionary practices at this time and a ‘check and balance’ approach when considering the qualitative data (Done and Knowler 2021c). The poor response to this survey was attributed to the onerous demands placed on school staffs during this period, for example, the development of online teaching resources online for whole school populations and risk assessment of all students with SEN/D (who were legally entitled to attend school) but also to the recurrent issue of sensitivity around exclusionary practices, legal and otherwise.

Reliability

Poor response rates to surveys that limit claims to the reliability of findings may be attributable to workload pressures, or be symptomatic of a wider ‘survey fatigue’, as schools are routinely invited to respond to numerous requests for participation in research initiated by university education departments, teaching unions, government departments and non-governmental bodies (and never more so than during the Covid-19 pandemic). However, selection of which survey requests to accept or decline may also be driven by professional interest as demonstrated by the relatively high response rates generated in surveys that highlight issues of workload and support for teachers and SENCos (e.g. Warnes, Done, and Knowler 2021). This suggestion is purely speculative, and second guessing the motivation for participation or non-participation is, arguably, a distraction from the far more pressing matters of how a reliable estimate of the extent of illegal exclusionary practices can be secured and how the level of formal and illegal exclusion might be reduced or eliminated. In a small-scale qualitative study of parents’ perspectives on off rolling (Done, Knowler, and Armstrong 2021), parents recounted distressing experiences that pointed to multiple episodes of off rolling, or serial off rolling, affecting the same child. Behavioural issues were invariably implicated and, in some cases, these were responses on the part of the child to incidents of bullying where the school’s subsequent actions were deemed inadequate, leading to chronic behavioural problems which the school then informed the parent could not be accommodated within that setting. A deterioration in the school–parent relationship then provided the conditions in which the parent would consent to the transfer of the child to another school (a legal requirement in such ‘managed moves’ in England), thereby permitting the school to evade its legal responsibility to ensure adequate and appropriate support to the child (DfE 2015). School refusal and absenteeism, although an understandable reaction on the part of a child who had been physically assaulted by a peer, and was unable to process the event due to their diagnosed condition, similarly became grounds for punitive or inappropriate measures by one school, illustrating the dynamics at play (Done, Knowler, and Armstrong 2021). Having been invited to recount experiences of school exclusion, it could be argued that parents are equally aware of the purpose of the research in which they are participating and may view such research as an indirect form of advocacy. However, there was less reason to doubt these parents’ experiential accounts, especially since some had not previously encountered the term off rolling and were unclear as to what actions constituted illegal exclusion. One parent contacted the researchers several months later to inform them that their child was benefitting from the transfer to a school that was far more tolerant of children with specific conditions; it was explained that the child was having fewer ‘wobbles’ and, unlike the previous school, the current school only sent the child home for 1 day to consider why their behaviour had been inappropriate rather than several days. To my knowledge, these periods at home to process what behaviour is consistently required in class are not recorded in official data as suspensions or fixed term exclusions and the parent is made aware of the school’s decision at the school gates when collecting their child at the end of the school day.

Authenticity, anecdote and accountability

So far, the concept of authenticity rather than that of veracity has been mobilised as this accords with the poststructuralist theoretical perspective that has informed data analysis in the studies referred to above. Authenticity, in this context, implies accounts of experience that the participant understands to be the expression of a personal truth, thus permitting the possibility of multiple truths without endorsing either an epistemological relativism or the objectivism associated with positivistic or quantitative research. On this count, experience is organised and interpreted through prevailing dominant social, political and professional discourses and counter-narratives (Foucault 1982). Inauthenticity arises when there is a disparity between that personal truth and a professed ‘truth’, one articulated in a specific public domain, where the latter is driven by awareness of what is socially, legally or professionally acceptable. Professional ‘banter’, engaged in within staffrooms or environments where an empathic response is anticipated might, for example, reveal a very different school culture to that projected through school websites, during school inspections or, indeed, at interview (as suspected in the senior leader study described above).

Parrhesia

Foucault (2008, 2009) borrows from classical literature to propose a further mode of truth-telling – parrhesia, which Tamboukou (2012, 849) applies in an exploration of ‘the dilemmas around the courage to tell the truth’ in the ‘dark times’ of the neoliberalisation of education. In Foucault, the truth-teller is aware of the risk to themselves in speaking out but has a moral duty to do so ‘as a duty to improve or help other people’ and in preference to ‘falsehood and silence’; parrhesia implies the exercise of freedom by those without power (or with less power) through this mustering of the courage to criticise (2001, 19 cited in Tamboukou 2012, 854). The suggestion here is that teachers and SENCos who are aware of illegal exclusionary practices, or formal exclusions that they feel are counter-productive or unjust, must be provided with arenas in which their authentic voices can be heard whilst minimising professional risk. It is a suggestion that evokes the feminist movement’s creation of a social media site on which women could anonymously register incidents of sexual harassment or violence, and that led to a number of high-profile legal prosecutions. Previously, as Boyle (2019, 51) notes, attempts to measure the prevalence of such incidents had been ‘notoriously fraught’ with difficulty. It was the sheer volume of anecdotal accounts that conveyed the existence of a very real problem, thereby undermining demands for accurate or statistically valid quantification and making them seem less relevant. Instead, the discourse around sexual politics and justice for women changed such that action became unavoidable.

Continuum thinking

Boyle’s (2019) work on ‘continuum thinking’ is of particular interest for two reasons. Firstly, it highlights the role of anecdotal evidence in countering a tendency that equally affects efforts to eliminate off rolling, that is, the deferral of action until the extent of the problem or, indeed, its very existence, has been established through empirical study and prevalence reliably quantified. The valorisation of ‘hard’ evidence functions as a rationale for deferring action but also constitutes the problem in question as a contested political site; hence, counter-arguments or fabrications such as Timpson’s portrayal of off rolling as a ‘rare’ event (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2018). Secondly, for Boyle (2019), it was the volume of anecdotal evidence that permitted the identification of patterns which then informed feminist theory-building. Exclusionary practices represent a similarly under-theorised area and the more nuanced version of continuum thinking proposed by Boyle (2019) provides a way of conceptualising the continuities and discontinuities between varied types of exclusionary practice and their impact on the mental health, behaviour and the life trajectories of young people (Done, Knowler and Armstrong 2021). Boyle (2019) insists on combining a descriptive continuum of events with an experiential continuum, arguing that seemingly less serious incidents of harassment can profoundly affect some individuals and have a cumulative impact on their self-perception and self-esteem.

The relevance of Boyle’s (2019) argument to exclusionary practices should now be clear, and this can be illustrated with reference to the child described above. Neither parent nor child, or presumably the school, would define as exclusionary the school's practice of sending children home to process why their behaviour was inappropriate. This action might, however, induce shame or a sense of stigma in the child who experiences an enforced separation from peers, however brief, as punitive, thereby inducing a negative self-image and further behavioural episodes that warrant such punishment in a damaging dynamic (Hallett and Hallett 2021). Whilst the school may consider this strategy of sending children with diagnosed conditions or mental health issues home for a period of reflection to be a remedial exercise, it is self-evidently exclusionary and resonates strongly with the ‘manage and discipline’ model of behavioural management critiqued by Armstrong (2018). It qualifies as one of many practices in schools that Power and Taylor (2020) characterise as exclusionary, even though they may be fabricated as advancing the inclusion agenda. It can also be located on a descriptive continuum at the pole of less serious incidents of exclusionary practice, but it is, nonetheless, exclusionary and, on an experiential continuum, there is a risk that it will fall at the opposite extreme by virtue of being profoundly negative in affect, depending on the child and other factors. Continuum thinking therefore offers a means of conceptually connecting all exclusionary practices as such, and highlighting their detrimental affective potential.

Thinking differently

The marked disparity between the professional ‘banter’ that the author has encountered in varied educational contexts and SENCos’ responses at interview when asked about their school’s exclusionary practices (Done and Knowler 2021b) underlines the need for ‘safe’ spaces where teachers, paraprofessionals and SENCos feel able to volunteer authentic accounts of exclusionary practices in their settings. This call does not undermine the advocacy leadership role demanded of SENCos (Clarke and Done 2021) but, rather, recognises that the parameters of what can be achieved are largely set by school principals and the school cultures they create and sustain, in response to prevailing governmental rationalities. It also acknowledges that no professional group within the education system is homogeneous as the heterogeneous composition of these groups is assumed. Poststructuralist theorising foregrounds the role of discourse in achieving political control of populations and sub-populations, but also opens up possibilities for thinking differently or imagining how things could be done differently (Grosz 1995). In Foucault’s (1991) consideration of method, taken-for-granted ‘truths’ are problematised and thereby politicised; additionally, novel ways of researching these ‘truths’ are supported and the ‘unavoidable participation’ of researchers is recognised (Bacchi 2012, 1).

In my experience, however, there are many teachers, SENCos and principals who already think differently but are constrained by funding issues (Janetti 2021) and the demands of a performativity-driven education culture (Ball 2003). This is a culture associated with the subjugation of ethics or ethical practice (Ball 2007), a transformation of the nature of caring (Ball 2003), and an erosion of professionalism (Biesta 2015). Within this neoliberal education culture, decontextualised and centrally distributed models of ‘best’ practice (Grimaldi 2015) are presented as solutions to any problem that individual schools may encounter and as a vehicle for improving school performance data. It is, therefore, remarkable that some schools are already doing things differently in terms of inclusion since prioritising inclusivity and prohibiting exclusions is widely perceived to risk weakening academic attainment performance data as Ofsted (2019) definition of off rolling suggests; such a school or MAT (multi-academy trust) policy would almost certainly be principal-led with stakeholder support. As recommended by Hallett and Hallett (2021), research should be undertaken to establish how behavioural issues are responded to in schools that do not engage in formal or illegal exclusionary practices. An Australian research project is currently seeking to work with school leaders in selected states that share the aspirations of ending exclusionary practices and addressing the disproportional representation of historically marginalised social groups evidenced in exclusion data in that national context but also globally (Done, Knowler, and Armstrong 2021; Armstrong forthcoming).

Analysis, ethics and affect

The overall analytical strategy adopted in all of the studies related to off rolling in England referred to here has been influenced by feminist post-humanism theorising in the sense that analysis of data has included reading diffractively, that is, reading participant responses and relevant texts in conjunction with or, rather, through anecdotal accounts of off rolling with which the researchers were familiar. Barad’s insistence that ethics, knowing and being are interwoven in an ethico-onto-epistemology (2007, 427) informed the positing of a ‘wavelength methodology’ in the analysis of data derived from parents whose children with SEN/D had experienced exclusionary and discriminatory practices in education (Done, Knowler, and Armstrong 2021). The development of this methodology was prompted by Foucault’s (1978) writing on the management of (in)visibility but also feminist post-humanist and poststructuralist concern with affective potential (Braidotti 2018; Deleuze 2004; Done, Knowler and Armstrong 2021). It was premised on an awareness that writing about SENCos invariably invokes sanctioned narratives around their onerous workload and commitment to the role but that they may also be involved in school decision-making related to off rolling. The experiences of parents who seek SENCo support are rarely articulated in their raw form since, conventionally, qualitative thematic analysis entails the extraction of an individual participant’s data in order to formulate more abstract thematic categories under which the detail is subsumed. Whilst the researchers did not wish to neglect the very real pressures that SENCos must negotiate on a daily basis (Clarke and Done 2021), the analytical priority was to make visible the experiences of parents and impact of exclusionary practices on their children with SEN/D, particularly those distressing experiences that tend to be white-washed from accounts of practice that constitute the impression management so characteristic of neoliberal education culture (Ball 2003). Indeed, Ball’s (2003) point about the changing nature of caring was drawn from a verbatim comment made by a SENCo which implies a possible ambivalence on the part of some SENCos around the types of school cultures in which they are obliged to fulfill their mandated role.

The latest study undertaken on perspectives on off rolling in England was conducted in summer 2021 where all participants were practicing educational psychologists (Done et al., under review). As with earlier such studies, a methodology and theoretical framework were selected which appeared relevant and appropriate to the research aims and data collected. In this instance, the objective was to acquire an overview of educational psychologists’ perspectives on, and experience of, off rolling and exclusionary practices in England. A mixed methods methodology was adopted as findings are to be widely disseminated in professional publications and the aim is to maximise support for efforts to eliminate off rolling. The study comprised an online quantitative survey and in-depth semi-structured interviews, and the response rates were significantly higher (n = 65 and n = 10, respectively) than those achieved among SENCos (Done and Knowler, 2021c).

Preliminary findings indicated that the majority of educational psychologists surveyed had witnessed, or were aware of, off rolling and a high level of concern was evidenced in the qualitative data around practices that schools do not regard as exclusionary, such as the use of isolation rooms or spaces, but which were considered to be potentially damaging to the children or young people concerned. Suspicions of off rolling were mentioned but the lack of ‘hard’ evidence made challenging the schools in question problematic. Protecting the working relationship with the school was viewed as a priority for many and this prompted exploration of the traded service status of educational psychology services and the wider context of privatisation affecting the public sector. Giroux’s (2020) conceptualisation of ‘bare’ pedagogic practice within neoliberal education cultures, as the failure to develop the critical literacy of students and instrumentalism, seemed equally applicable to traded psychology services. Beyond mandatory assessment work in the preparation of Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans commissioned by local authorities in order to determine levels of additional support for children with SEN/D, schools themselves also invite educational psychologists to work with individual students, implying commercial pressure. Workload was not raised at interview; however, it is noteworthy, given the implications for children who are likely to present with challenging behaviour by virtue of their condition, that an educational psychologist recruitment crisis has been reported by local authorities which is delaying the timely completion of ECH plan assessments (Janetti 2021). As the latter points out, this means that an unspecified number of children with, for example, autism will begin attending school this coming academic year without the support that they need. Janetti (2021) also notes that parents are going to tribunal to seek legal protection for the additional support that their children require; this is because schools are now informing parents that they have insufficient funds for every child who should be assessed by an educational psychologist and, without specification of additional support in an EHC plan by an educational psychologist, that support is not guaranteed. Meanwhile, following reforms in 2014, local government has experienced a 50% increase in applications for EHC plans (Janetti 2021).

Meta-analysis

The strategy of electing for methodological and theoretical pluralism in the outlined research programme has not prevented individual studies from being conceived as contributing to a cumulative and iterative process involving secondary analysis and a thematic synthesis of findings from these studies. Multiple studies using differing methods of data collection and analysis can facilitate insights and enhance validity (Meetoo and Temple 2003; Hammond 2005). Such secondary analysis and synthesis across all project strands entailed comparing each data set with data sets from earlier studies (Thomas and Harden 2008). ‘Manufactured legitimacy’ was one resulting theme since every data set provided insights into how schools can manipulate exclusionary processes in order that they appear legitimate and lawful, and this invariably involves the manipulation of varied stakeholders, including parents (Done, Knowler, and Armstrong 2021) and educational psychologists (Done, Knowler, and Armstrong 2021). A further theme was that of ‘negotiated ambiguities’ as all stakeholders were aware, albeit to varying degrees, of tensions between the discourses through which the education system is organised and the implications for inclusive practice (Warnes, Done, and Knowler 2021).

Conclusion

Through careful consideration of methodological issues raised in the research of sensitive topics, specifically, off rolling, this paper illustrates the type of problems that researchers are likely to encounter when researching exclusionary practices associated, ostensibly or otherwise, with behaviour and to problematise policy solutions. It is questionable whether Ofsted’s (2021) recently revised school inspection criteria will mitigate the problems of exclusionary practices and disproportionality or the over-representation of marginalised groups in exclusion data given that the wider context in which schools exclude remains unchanged in relation to pressures around academic attainment and performance data and to the resourcing of efforts to address structural inequities. The authenticity of political support for the inclusion agenda can, consequently, be called into question with persistent underfunding of that agenda prompting schools to advise parents that they cannot, or can no longer, accommodate children with specific needs or disabilities (Done, Knowler, and Armstrong 2021). This has been characterised as a tension between rationalities (economic and political) (Done and Knowler 2020b) and prioritisation of the economic because education is discursively constituted as pivotal in maintaining national economic performance within the global economy. Performativity in this context implies the management of appearances which, as Bradbury and Roberts-Holmes (2017) describe, includes the creation of an acceptable ‘Ofsted story’. If children with SEN/D are experienced as burdensome by the education professionals charged with providing support and high-quality education (Warnes, Done, and Knowler 2021), and well-intentioned third parties find themselves being enlisted to support school decision-making that is questionable (Done, Knowler, and Armstrong 2021), anecdotal accounts of exclusionary practices, and the research methods that facilitate them, have the capacity to coalesce into a powerful counter-narrative. Parents of children with SEN/D in Ireland have recently organised a ‘Not Okay’ social media site where parents are able to post accounts of negative experiences within Irish schools (Casey 2021). The objective is to challenge political ambivalence around inclusion, and draw attention to the chronic underfunding of the inclusion agenda. Notably, when asked what initiatives might assist in eliminating off rolling in English schools, it was an educational psychologist that responded, ‘Whistle-blowing’ (Done, Knowler, and Armstrong 2021).

Researchers of exclusionary practices must strike a delicate balance between a refusal to indulge in ‘teacher blaming’ regardless of context (Thrupp 2008) and viewing the teaching profession – including senior school leaders, as a homogeneous entity, and their commitment to social justice for all children and young people. Interest in ‘change management’ (a concept derived from business management theory) for schools and government advice on behaviour management (DfE 2019b) as vehicles for inclusivity may serve to highlight stakeholder and teacher values and attitudes that are not conducive to reductions in exclusionary practices or the elimination of legal permanent exclusions and off-rolling. The practical or budgetary aspect of change management programmes cannot be neglected; however, in the current context of chronic underfunding of the inclusion agenda and optimising the impact of inclusion-related expenditure is also key to effecting meaningful change. The danger is that calls for strategic the optimisation of inclusionary impacts through improved resource management will come to function as a political smokescreen that deflects attention from funding issues.

Beyond demands for adequate funding, if exclusionary practices are to be eliminated, schools must adapt and respond differently to children and young people with conditions that may manifest in challenging behaviours. One example of such adaptation was encountered in our investigation of the strategic leadership of SENCos during mandatory school closures in response to the Covid-19 pandemic (Done and Knowler 2021b); a well-equipped ‘safe space’ was created on the school site for the children with disabilities (permitted to continue attending school at this time), thereby reducing adverse behavioural responses to the stressful disruption of routines and minimising exclusionary actions. The SENCo in question had reviewed the school’s exclusion rate prior to her appointment and articulated her determination to reduce what was an unacceptably high rate among students with SEN/D, which was supported by the principal who then later backed the ‘safe space’ idea. What emerged from that research was that strategic initiatives by SENCos were conditional upon support from school principals and that school policies relating to inclusion, behaviour, safeguarding and exclusion were rarely integrated (Done and Knowler 2021b). The international research project referred to earlier is seeking to work with school leaders to explore such issues (Done, Knowler, and Armstrong 2021; Armstrong forthcoming).

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elizabeth J. Done

Dr Elizabeth J. Done is a visiting fellow in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Exeter and now supervises doctoral students at the Plymouth Institute of Education, specialising in inclusion and pststructuralist theory. She supported a NASENCO programme for several years after returning from Sudan where she was a Professor of Health Psychology. Elizabeth has published widely on inclusion-related issues and her current research interests are exclusion and exclusionary pressures in education.