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.
