Teaching in alternative and flexible education settings

Alternative and flexible education settings may come in different forms, but they generally have in common a focus on young people who have been disengaged from conventional schooling. One challenge of these settings, therefore, is to change the way education is offered in order to better engage these students. Much of the onus for this changed approach is on the staff: teachers, youth workers and other support staff. Therefore, the purpose of this book is to examine different aspects of the work of staff in these settings.Several common threads run through the chapters in this book, highlighting core aspects of the work of staff in these settings:• A strong sense of commitment to working with and for young people from marginalised backgrounds.• Validation of the relational and emotional nature of education, as a fundamentally people-centred enterprise.• The importance of explicit attention to critical reflection on staff members’ own positionality, assumptions and identity.• Collegiality as a crucially affirming part of school culture for staff.These elements are pertinent to educational settings everywhere. The chapters in this book serve as a reminder of what really ‘counts’ for our young people and their schooling.The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Teaching Education

Student voice and the community forum: finding ways of ‘being heard’ at an alternative school for disenfranchised young people

Opportunities for students to speak and to be heard are important elements of democratic schooling processes but research into student voice has shown that a culture of silence is a more common feature of schooling. Efforts to re‐engage young people in learning often recognise the importance of schooling processes that provide them with opportunities to participate meaningfully in schooling dialogues. This paper describes attempts to provide such opportunities for young people in an alternative school, who had been marginalised in mainstream schooling. Research was conducted over a period of 18 months, utilising a range of data collection methods, including interviews, observations, photography and the collection of artefacts, such as school documents. Drawing particularly on data related to a daily community forum, the paper explores how this routine afforded opportunities for student voice. The three‐part structure of the forum produced a range of effects, including: a discussion of issues related to local and wider community news as well as college announcements; a check‐in where each member of the community voiced their readiness (or otherwise) for the day's learning; and a sign‐up process that incorporated informed decision making about the day's learning sessions. It is argued that the intentions that underpin the community forum are important and relevant in all forms of schooling, not just alternative programmes, but these intentions can produce unintended effects.Full Tex

Alternative education and social justice: considering issues of affective and contributive justice

This article considers the ways in which three alternative education sites in Australia support socially just education for their students and how injustice is addressed within these schools. The article begins with recognition of the importance of Nancy Fraser’s work to understandings of social justice. It then goes on to argue that her framework is insufficient for understanding the particularly complex set of injustices that are faced by many highly marginalised young people who have rejected or been rejected by mainstream education systems. We argue here for the need to consider the importance of ‘affective’ and ‘contributive’ aspects of justice in schools. Using interview data from the alternative schools, we highlight issues of affective justice raised by students in relation to their educational journeys, as well as foregrounding teachers’ affective work in schools. We also consider curricular choices and pedagogical practices in respect of matters of contributive justice. Our contention is that the affective and contributive fields are central to the achievement of social justice for the young people attending these sites. Whilst mainstream schools are not the focus of this article, we suggest that the lessons here have salience for all forms of schooling