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Chapter 6 - Excluded Lives

Questions of Agency and Transformation in Practices of Exclusion from School

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2023

By
Harry Daniels ,
Ian Thompson  and
Alice Tawell
Edited by
Nick Hopwood  and
Annalisa Sannino
Nick Hopwood
Affiliation:
University of Technology, Sydney
Annalisa Sannino
Affiliation:
Tampere University, Finland
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Summary

This chapter problematises questions of agency, transformation and motives in the context of the exclusion of young people from school. It addresses the question: in what ways might young people be agentic in processes of school exclusion and how might that agency be strengthened? In order to explore this question, the chapter draws on recent developments in cultural-historical theories of transformative agency by double stimulation and Bernsteinian insights on cultural transmission and pedagogy. Empirical data from an exploratory study of permanent school exclusions in a southern English city are used to illustrate the theoretical considerations on transformative agency that are emerging from a four-year multidisciplinary comparative study of exclusion, in all its forms, across the four jurisdictions of the UK. Data are also used to explore the concept of the categorisation of exclusions and in the context of understanding the possibilities for young people’s agency in exclusion.

Keywords

agencytransformationmotivesdouble stimulationschool exclusionyoung peoplecategorisation of exclusioncultural transmissionpedagogy
Type
Chapter
Information
Agency and Transformation
Motives, Mediation, and Motion
 , pp. 139 - 161
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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