Faure Walker, Josephine (2021) Understanding Internal Exclusion: An Exploration of How Senior Leaders in Mainstream Secondary Schools Make Sense of Their Experience. DEdCPsy thesis, University of Sheffield.
Abstract
Internal exclusion (IE) describes the liminal physical or metaphorical space between a child's inclusion in mainstream class and exclusion from school. IE can be also known as “inclusion, learning support, exclusion, isolation, intervention or nurture groups” (Burton, Bartlett, & Anderson de Cuevas, 2009, p.151). Exploration of IE is limited to several studies (Gilmore, 2012; 2013; Gillies, 2016; Greenstein, 2014; Preece & Timmins, 2004). Taken together, these suggest that IE is constructed by staff and pupils as both support and sanction, and there is a significant diversity of approaches. In this study, I contribute to the critical Educational Psychology literature by taking a social constructionist and post-structuralist approach informed by the work of Foucault (1977/1991) to understand how senior leaders made sense of IE. I conducted unstructured interviews with a headteacher and assistant headteacher of two mainstream secondary schools in England at the start of the Autumn 2020 term, and analysed the data using a narrative approach (Riessman, 2008; Squire, 2013). Findings suggest that participants made sense of IE in relation to psychological discourses of behaviourism, humanism, and the psycho-medical, that were at times incongruent with one another. IE was identified as a technology that operationalised disciplinary power (Foucault, 1977/1991), yet it was subsumed into discourses of support for social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs. Risk to the core business of school was meaningful. These findings provide a valuable contribution to educational psychologists’ (EPs) understanding of IE and show how making these discourses visible enables them to be challenged. I conclude with practical implications for EPs, limitations, and recommendations for future research.
Metadata
Supervisors: | Fogg, Penny |
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Keywords: | exclusion, isolation, inclusion, SEMH, narrative, discourse, qualitative, foucault |
Awarding institution: | University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Education (Sheffield) |
Identification Number/EthosID: | uk.bl.ethos.834118 |
Depositing User: | Ms Josephine Faure Walker |
Date Deposited: | 04 Aug 2021 10:32 |
Last Modified: | 01 Sep 2021 09:53 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:etheses.whiterose.ac.uk:29271 |
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