The impact of social class on parent–professional interaction in school exclusion processes: deficit or disadvantage?

Abstract

Although a great deal of previous literature has explored the ways in which social class affects parental engagement in educational processes, there has been surprisingly little discussion of the way in which social class shapes the parent–professional interaction that occurs in school exclusion processes specifically. School exclusion processes are complex and those parents who become involved in them have to negotiate not only the formal processes that surround the use of permanent and fixed-term exclusion but also the less well-regulated and increasingly favoured processes that are associated with the use of alternatives to exclusion from school. This paper draws on the perspectives of professionals working in a wide variety of roles and contexts in one local authority in England and on those of a small number of mothers of children with longer and more complex histories of involvement in school exclusion processes. It argues for greater recognition of the impact of social class on parent–professional interaction in school exclusion processes because of the way in which it helps to perpetuate an intergenerational cycle of social and educational disadvantage.

Keywords:

• exclusion from school
• social class
• parents
• educational disadvantage
• equity
• aspirations