School Exclusion: The Will to Punish

Abstract

This paper examines perspectives on student disaffection in education at the levels of culture and policy. It considers the balance between punitive/exclusionary and therapeutic/restorative positions. The paper engages with concepts of retributive punishment (Murray, 2004a;, social welfare ideologies (Esping-Andersen, 1990) and discourses of social exclusion (Levitas, 1998). The conclusion is that policy choices are made about how disaffected, at risk young people are to be provided for, and these policy choices are not contained simply within an education policy and practice setting. The policy responses emerge from national and local government decision-making. They correlate with national indicators of punitiveness in the criminal justice system and the scale of inequalities tolerated. Policies resonate with deepseated cultural positions which are linked to the willingness to pay -for prevention or for punishment -and with the propensity to allocate blame either to individuals and families or to societal failures. Opportunities for intervention at points in the reinforcing cycle of punitiveness are indicated.

Individualizando la Violencia Escolar: Análisis de Prácticas Discursivas en una Escuela Municipal de la Región de Valparaíso

“…Con esto se le hace sentir al estudiante que es merecedor de esta exclusión, debido a componentes psicológicos de su personalidad, despojándolo de su capacidad de desarrollo de autonomía. Para Parsons (2005) las políticas de castigo y exclusión de la escuela están arraigadas culturalmente y se constituyen como prácticas tendientes a ubicar la responsabilidad en los individuos, sus familias o el fracaso social.…”

‘A Person is a Person Because of Others’: Challenges to Meanings of Discipline in South African and UK Schools

“…We suggest that there are three key aspects to this challenge in the discipline/punishment/power nexus. The first of these relates to prevalent and, we suggest, impoverished meanings of discipline, current in many schools; the second aspect relates to the 'will to punish' (Parsons, 2005); and the third is concerned with change and change processes within an educational system and structure largely unchanged since its introduction in the industrial era of the late ninetieth and early twentieth century (Pace & Hemmings, 2007).…”

London Education and Inclusion Project (LEIP): A cluster-randomised controlled trial protocol of an intervention to reduce antisocial behaviour and improve educational/occupational attainment for pupils at risk of school exclusion

“…91). Compared to other countries, for example in Switzerland where school-exclusions are utilized as a 'treatment' strategy, in the UK schoolexclusions are utilized largely as one of the more extreme types of disciplinary measures (Parsons 2005). Despite recent evidence from other countries suggesting that school-exclusions are not only non-effective in achieving behavioural and/or educational improvements in young people, but may in fact be harmful (Gazeley 2010;Osler and Vincent 2003), they continue to be widely used in schools throughout the UK.…”