An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the Educational Experiences of Three Young People, Detained or Placed in Custody, in a Secure Children’s Home.

Despite national and international legislation that enshrines the right for children and young people to have access to good quality education, educational provision and outcomes in the secure estate are considered poor. This thesis seeks to explore the educational experiences of three young people in a secure children’s home (SCH). I have done this in order to provide a platform for voices that are often overlooked and to explore potential ways in which educational provision within the secure estate can be improved. Participants were recruited in a collaborative effort between myself and the headteacher at the SCH. I interviewed each young person once. I used an unstructured interview format, seeking to dynamically engage with the double-hermeneutic, in order to deepen my understanding of each young person’s educational experience. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and the transcriptions were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Analysis generated three super-ordinate themes: Nurture, Control, and The Utility of Education. Sub-ordinate themes for Nurture explored the importance of a bespoke curriculum tailored to individual need, relationships within the SCH, and how my participants experienced an absence of nurture when recollecting their experiences in mainstream education. Sub-ordinate themes for Control explored how participants experienced confinement, how they experienced and responded to power being exerted over them, and how the controlling powers of the SCH led to experiences of meaningful engagement with learning tasks or social interactions. Sub-ordinate themes for the Utility of Education explored how participants experienced education as leading to the meaningful reward of employment, how educational engagement affected their experience of temporality, and how education gave them an opportunity to experience feelings of success. The knowledge generated here should be considered idiographic and specific to the time and space in which it was generated. The responses of my participants were presented in dialogue with relevant existing academic literature in order to seek a deeper interpretation of their responses. This analysis led to the generation of recommendations for educational psychology practice and future research. Recommendations include a greater focus on the embodied experiences of young people within the secure estate, a consideration of how relationships are experienced within the secure estate and how both can impact on how education is experienced in this environment.