‘Give me air not shelter’: critical tales of a policy case of student re-engagement from beyond school

Abstract

This paper tackles what is arguably one of the most pressing and intractable educational issues confronting western democracies – the disengagement and disconnection from schooling of alarming numbers of young people. The paper looks at the policy response in Victoria, Australia, and through ethnographic interviews with a small number of young people; it finds a significant mismatch between the policy intent of re-engagement programmes, and the experiences of young people themselves. It seems that this is an instance of what might be termed policy deafness, a situation that will likely produce devastating consequences unless corrected.

Keywords:

• equity/social justice
• inclusion

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, but most of all to the courageous young people who told us their stories. The ideas expressed are those of the authors and do not imply endorsement by any other bodies. Thank you to Peter McInerney for his contribution to the fieldwork and analysis, and to the four anonymous reviewers for their most helpful comments.

Additional information

Funding

Funding. This research was funded through an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant (LP 1000100045, 2010–13) Re-engaging disadvantaged young people with learning (Chief Investigator John Smyth).