Girls and gender in alternative education provision

Abstract

UK Government policy states that all young people aged 14–19 are entitled to a broad and balanced curriculum, with access to ‘personalised’ education and training pathways. With boys currently leading the statistics on exclusion, girls’ educational and social needs are often sidelined in alternative education provision, as the majority of education and training programmes are populated by and designed for boys. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from six alternative education provision sites located in the Midlands England, we argue that there are problems for girls with what's on offer, and with access and participation. We describe three girls and their discursive positions to reveal how gender is (re)produced and suggest a need for future research to investigate the experiences of girls in alternative education provision.

Keywords:

• gender
• girls
• alternative education
• access
• participate