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Abstract
This article focuses on the administration of disciplinary exclusion (expulsion) from school. It identifies a number of social boundaries between people that negatively affect students subject to permanent exclusion, to the extent that they can be seen as constituting incidents of institutional racism. For example, the high statistical currency of the English language and the lack of adequate translation facilities are shown to constitute social boundaries between people that undermine the participation of parents in school exclusion and inclusion processes. Age assessments for immigrant and refugee children are also seen to affect institutional responses to individual cases of permanent exclusion from school. Assumptions about what excluded students ‘need’ are found to sometimes be made on the basis of reductive skin‐colour labels, and a disconnect is discovered between the discourses that school and family are socially authorised to adopt in discussing students at risk of exclusion. It is recommended that institutional racism in schooling is acknowledged and acted upon by both policy makers and practitioners.
Notes
1. A ‘local authority’ is the local government in an area of England, which runs public services, usually including education and social services.
2. ‘Enway’ is a pseudonym, as are all other names of people and places in this article in order to protect anonymity and confidentiality.
3. See also Carlile (Citation2010).
4. The Stephen Lawrence Enquiry: report of an enquiry by William Macpherson of Cluny presented to the English Parliament by the Secretary of State, February 1999.
5. Department for Education and Skills, now the Department for Education.
6. A senior social worker.
7. Responsible for supporting and enforcing the orders given to young people who had become involved with the youth justice system.
8. These officers ensure that students attend school and can fine their parents where attendance becomes a marked problem.
9. A private school delivering education for children who were unable to attend mainstream school due to behavioural issues.
10. Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
11. That is, South Asian.
12. A senior teacher with pastoral care responsibilities for each age‐group.
13. A judicial injunction tailored to the young person’s misdemeanours.
14. This would still have been essentialising, but would have more easily revealed the judgements as being based on racist stereotyping.
15. Local Education Authority.
16. General Certificate in Secondary Education.
17. Aged 14–15.
18. Principal.
19. This is clearly untrue, as due to the text content of the exam papers it would not be possible to get an A* in maths without ‘a word of English.’
20. The case of Nepalese students is especially interesting, as I observed during my research that they were extremely popular amongst teachers due to a perceived ‘politeness’ and deference.
21. A senior teacher whose work includes supporting previously excluded students and those with special educational needs into their school.
22. General Certificate of Secondary Education.
23. A senior teacher responsible for the pastoral care of the year‐group or class.
24. Most students in Year 10 are 14 to 15 years old.
25. Child and adolescent mental health services.
26. Prison for young people.
27. ‘White British’ in the standard government‐recommended ‘ethnic monitoring codes,’ which had been developed on the basis of the 2001 population census (Department for Education and Skills Citation2002).
28. Again, it is important to point out that these codes essentialise the experience of a constructed category of people. These stand for ‘Black Caribbean’; black African,’ or ‘black other’ in the ‘ethnic monitoring codes.’ These, as in many urban areas in England, lacked the detail Enway research officers wanted to gather, and so the list in Enway was more detailed that the government‐recommended list.
29. The phrase sometimes given to describe children whose parents are understood to have different cultural and/or ethnic backgrounds.
30. UK Government Department for Education and Employment, now the Department for Children, Families and Schools.
31. Department for Children, Families and Schools.