‘Sent out’ and Stepping Back In: stories from young people ‘placed at risk’

Abstract

This paper invokes the voices of young people who had been separated from mainstream schooling because they were positioned as ‘disengaged’ and ‘at risk of failing’. The authors argue that streaming students out of schooling needs serious questioning as an escalating number of young people are framed as non-performers within a globally competitive educational market. Throughout the paper we use critical ethnographic slices to expose the experiences of the 24 young people interviewed who together with mentors shared personal insights whilst attending a re-engagement programme in Australia in the year 2010. Their responses unearth a ‘wickedness’ and a preoccupation during their schooling with performance and school improvement. In response, we privilege student interpretations of their own marginalisation as an activist form of ‘speaking back’ to the social and economic conditions and limitations dominating their lives.

Keywords:

• ‘at risk’ policy
• pedagogical voices
• ethnographic slices
• critical ethnography
• educational re-engagement
• precarity

Acknowledgements

Grateful appreciation to the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development who were the industry partner, to the schools who generously provided access, to Peter McInerney for his contribution to the fieldwork and analysis, but most of all to the courageous young people who told us their stories. The research was conducted while the authors were affiliated with Federation University Australia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Pseudonyms have been used for all schools, programmes, students and their teachers throughout this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded through an Australian Research Council Linkage grant [LP 1000100045, 2010–2013] Re-engaging disadvantaged young people with learning (Chief Investigator John Smyth).