Monday 25 March 2013

Re-engagement to where? Low SES students in alternative-education programmes on the path to low-status destinations?

an article by John Smyth, Peter McInerney and Tim Fish (University of Ballarat, Australia) published in Research in Post-Compulsory Education Volume 18 Issue 1-2 (2013)

Abstract

This paper poses a rarely asked question – Re-engagement to where? Or to what valued social purpose for the young people concerned?

Drawing from a larger project funded by the Australian Research Council, the paper analyses the ‘portraits’ of two young people whose lives were seemingly better within a re-engagement programme, but whose lives were severely circumscribed by the narrow vocationalism offered in the programme.

More concerning was the fact that the considerable natural talents and skills of these young people were neither acknowledged nor used as the basis to improve their life chances or opportunities.

Hazel’s comment:
SES = socioeconomic status (and I had to go and look it up).


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