‘Favourite places in school’ for lower-set ‘ability’ pupils:school groupings practices and children’s spatial orientations

This paper contributes to the recent turn within Children’s Geographies concerned with understanding and illuminating educational inequalities. The focus is upon pupils assigned to lower ‘ability’ groupings, in a school under pressure to raise attainment. The objective of the paper is twofold, firstly to consider how school grouping practices affect children’s sense of belonging in lessons, and secondly, to contextualise these findings against children’s spatial orientations within the broader school environment. It is argued that a spatial focus may shed light upon the educational policy drivers that contribute to the exclusion of disadvantaged children. Neo-liberal imperatives of accountability and performance can be seen to shape hierarchies of belonging, where pupils’ positioning in ‘ability’ groupings enables/limits the spatial agency that they can exert. Macro policy concerns are mapped onto micro school processes concerning the construction and governance of school spaces, using theoretical insights from Michel Foucault and R.D Sack

Theorising social and emotional wellbeing in schools::a framework for analysing educational policy

Young people are increasingly lamented as unable to cope with ‘everyday realities of life’ with educational institutions and parenting styles accelerating what some refer to as the ‘snowflake generation’. This paper addresses confusion that exists in the framing of social and emotional wellbeing, delineating three competing perspectives: (1) ‘skills and competencies’, (2) ‘morals and ethics’ and (3) ‘capital and identity’. Embedded within each perspective are distinct notions of the ‘self’ and processes of socialisation and identity formation. The competency-based perspective shifts attention towards the individual and is reliant upon universal skills. This contrasts with a morals and ethics-based perspective on social and emotional wellbeing which is seen to be contingent upon the values that guide our moral and ethical frameworks, and informs how we relate with others. A capital and identity perspective does not speak of ‘wellbeing’ per se, but rather places emphasis on the different sets of resources available to children. These perspectives offer fundamentally distinct framings of the ‘crisis of youth’ and we draw out the implications for current and future policy development they imply

‘Push on through’:Children’s perspectives on the narratives of resilience in schools identified for intensive mental health promotion

Child mental health is a growing concern for policymakers across the global north. Schools have become a key site for mental health interventions, with new programmes aimed at promoting ‘resilience’, through which children may maintain or regain mental health during adversity. As one of the first studies to explore the early impact of intensive mental health promotion in schools from children’s perspectives, we adopt a governmentality approach to consider the logic and techniques of such programmes with a specific focus on England. An innovative visual methodology was used to focus on student perspectives of mental health interventions in school. Young peoples’ photo representations of mental health were collected and used to stimulate focus group discussions with 65 students aged 12–14, across seven schools. ‘Resilience’ was seen to be the key organising concept for mental health interventions in schools. The concept was viewed as narrowly focused on attitude towards—and performance in—school work, with individuals being encouraged to ‘push on through’ difficulties to achieve success. Young people were critical of this approach, suggesting several alternatives. These included increased access to independent mental health professionals, safe spaces within schools and mental health education that addressed the social and affective dimensions of mental health difficulties

Theorising social and emotional wellbeing in schools::a framework for analysing educational policy

Young people are increasingly lamented as unable to cope with ‘everyday realities of life’ with educational institutions and parenting styles accelerating what some refer to as the ‘snowflake generation’. This paper addresses confusion that exists in the framing of social and emotional wellbeing, delineating three competing perspectives: (1) ‘skills and competencies’, (2) ‘morals and ethics’ and (3) ‘capital and identity’. Embedded within each perspective are distinct notions of the ‘self’ and processes of socialisation and identity formation. The competency-based perspective shifts attention towards the individual and is reliant upon universal skills. This contrasts with a morals and ethics-based perspective on social and emotional wellbeing which is seen to be contingent upon the values that guide our moral and ethical frameworks, and informs how we relate with others. A capital and identity perspective does not speak of ‘wellbeing’ per se, but rather places emphasis on the different sets of resources available to children. These perspectives offer fundamentally distinct framings of the ‘crisis of youth’ and we draw out the implications for current and future policy development they imply

Education Policy and mental weakness:a response to a mental health crisis

Educationalists have been concerned with the labelling and treatment of children with mental health difficulties in the education system in England for some time (Timimi 2002; Rose 2005; Jull 2008, Cole 2015). These concerns have centred on the role of policy in ‘othering’ such students as deviant learners. The unprecedented number of children suffering from mental illnesses, has forced policymakers to address children’s mental health difficulties. This has involved the identification of a sub-set of the school population experiencing ‘less-severe’ mental health issues, to be addressed through a suite of policy interventions delivered by whole-school approaches, but targeted towards children situated as mentally ‘weak’. Drawing upon a Foucauldian theory of governmentality that addresses children’s behavioural motivations (Rose 1989; Millar and Rose 1990; Foucault 2001; 2008; Popkewitz 2012) an in-depth analysis of a number of educational policy initiatives related to mental health, is conducted, that it is argued are fundamentally flawed. This analysis is followed by a discussion of the performative culture of High Stakes Testing in contributing to children’s mental health difficulties. Here it is argued that a narrative of mental weakness serves to justify a neoliberal rationality towards the treatment of children for whom the performative logic assumed to motivate all learners, fails

‘Favourite places in school’ for lower-set ‘ability’ pupils:school groupings practices and children’s spatial orientations

This paper contributes to the recent turn within Children’s Geographies concerned with understanding and illuminating educational inequalities. The focus is upon pupils assigned to lower ‘ability’ groupings, in a school under pressure to raise attainment. The objective of the paper is twofold, firstly to consider how school grouping practices affect children’s sense of belonging in lessons, and secondly, to contextualise these findings against children’s spatial orientations within the broader school environment. It is argued that a spatial focus may shed light upon the educational policy drivers that contribute to the exclusion of disadvantaged children. Neo-liberal imperatives of accountability and performance can be seen to shape hierarchies of belonging, where pupils’ positioning in ‘ability’ groupings enables/limits the spatial agency that they can exert. Macro policy concerns are mapped onto micro school processes concerning the construction and governance of school spaces, using theoretical insights from Michel Foucault and R.D Sack

Educational Binds of Poverty:The Lives of School Children

Educational Binds of Poverty tackles the assumptions made by many recent social and educational policy initiatives suggesting that the best way to improve educational prospects of children in poverty is through an increased emphasis upon a culture of control, discipline, regulation and accountability. In this book, Ceri Brown presents these assumptions against a review of the research literature and an original ethnographic longitudinal study into the lives of children in poverty, in order to highlight the gap between policy discourses and the lived experiences of children themselves.　Through the theoretical concept of a set of ‘binds’ against educational success, the book explores four key areas that children in poverty have to navigate if they are to be successful in school. These are:material deprivationthe cultural contexts of school, home and the communityfriendship and social capitalthe effects of student mobility through atypical school changes.In seeking to characterise and explain what life is like for young school children, this book questions why policy makers have a radically different frame of reference in purporting to understand how their policies will change the behaviour of those living in poverty. This leads onto a consideration of what lessons may be learned in order to contribute towards a more appropriate policy agenda that attends to the multiple binds that children in poverty have to negotiate