The Incidence of Exclusion in the United Kingdoms Education System - Case Study Example

What impact does school exclusion have on the life chances of young people? What are the implications for social work? This paper will examine the incidence of exclusion in United Kingdom’s education system as well as its effect on the life chances of young people and in social work. UK Social Policy: Background In investigating the subject of exclusion in UK’s education system, there is a need for an in-depth understanding of the governmental education policy. This aspect is very important because whatever practices and outcomes that emerge in the policymaking process, they result from purposeful decisions of social groups and players which makes the case of the country’s educational system unique. According to Carl Parsons (1999), the aim of the British education system may unfortunately be guided by myths instead of addressing complex realities. (p3) Carr and Hartnett (1996) also believe this, maintaining that there was no opportunity to radically rethink education policy and that education became some platform or even an excuser for retreat into spirits, fantasies, vocabularies and dreams of the past. (p107) This is specifically demonstrated in the current education policy, which according to MacIntyre is guided by the requirement: To shape the young person so that he or she may FIT into some social role and function that requires recruit ‘and’ teaching young persons how to think for themselves, how to acquire independence of mind, how to be enlightened. (Cheng et al. 2006, p89) The above variables are aggravated by the current devolution trend in UK’s social policy. Here, there is policy divergence from across the country, wherein devolved administrations have the power to make their own social and education policies. For instance, there is the introduction of specialist schools or the setting of SAT’s for 9-year-olds, which is only applicable in England and not in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. (Blakemore and Griggs 2007, p244) This dimension reveals that contextual differences among the UK education systems affect the formation of policies. It has direct bearing on the diversity of school types, and the extent of intervention and involvement of stakeholders such as the local government, religion, the parents and other pressure groups. As a result, it is difficult to achieve a cohesive policy that would eradicate incidences of inequality and exclusion. Education Policy Between the 1960s and the 1970s, the British education policy has been concerned with greater equality and the eradication of discriminatory practices. The main legislations associated with equal opportunities at this time were the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975, which specifically included education as well as the Race Relation Act of 1976. This set of legislation led to a range of policy strategies that had been instituted by individual teachers, schools and local authorities. (Salisbury and Ridell 2000, p19-20) However, it must be emphasized that the concern for equality and the eradication of discrimination during this period was more voluntary in nature and that policies rested mainly on some committed politicians, the efforts of individual teachers and schools as well as local authorities. The trend took a bad turn during the latter part of the 1980s when the Conservative government assumed power. During this period, emphasis shifted from equality towards patterns of difference in examination, gender and different social backgrounds. This was institutionalized in the so-called education reform, which emerged as a consequence of the Education Reform Act and the National Curriculum. These developments in the UK education system fostered inequality because it mainly worked according to the principle of the survival of the fittest, intellectual achievement as well as social status. In this regard, inequality and exclusion becomes acceptable in the name of competitive spirit and excellence. Exclusion has been legitimized in the United Kingdom by several policy decisions such as the development of system of special education needs or SEN wherein integration is tempered by the provision stressing that such move should be dependent on the efficient use of resources. (Batsleer and Humphries 1999, p121) The offshoot is that many schools excluded disabled students as well as minorities because they entail additional expenses for facilities and human resource in order to address their academic deficiencies. In addition, the current education policies, allows for exclusion to be used as a form of academic punishment for, and as a measure for dealing with, individual students as well as their families or guardians, who do not or cannot conform to the norms of behaviour established within particular education or school environments. (Maguire, Macrae and Milbourne 2005, p131) Students become unwelcome and excluded and this sector is constituted mostly by children and young people, who are judged to be failing, struggling or difficult, who are considered to be “unsaleable” goods in the market. (Parsons, p160) As it is, formal education became competition-centric and driven by the marketplace as well as other dominant pressure groups. The students’ scores, absences and information in the so-called “exclusion table” reduced opportunities to more and more British students. Although the current system has successfully produced successful students – those earning grades A-C at GCSE - this trend was achieved at the expense of many students, especially the minorities. Exclusion in Education There is a growing number of studies that have found the significant increase in the number of students being excluded from UK schools. A case in point is a research undertaken by Maguire, Macrae and Milbourne that found from late 1980s to the late 1990s, exclusion among students in the primary school increased from 3000 in 1990 to 13,000 in 1998. (p130) According to this study, certain groups, boys, children of African-Caribbean origin, “looked after” children, and those with special needs (SEN) are disproportionately excluded. This was supported by the work of Gillborn (2008), who specifically argued that when we focus on the likelihood of exclusion within each ethnic group the pattern shows that Blacks are most likely to be excluded than their White counterparts. (p63) Hill and Cole (2001) called exclusion as the “hidden curriculum” in UK schools, wherein the rules, practices and general ethos help in the unequal educational opportunities offered to excluded groups. (p252) Many programs and education modules, for instance, that are facilitated even under the Race Relations Act for minorities are clearly cast in the deficit model and are characterized by both indirect discrimination and structural barriers to participation. (Rees 1998, p54) This is demonstrated in the way minorities such as the Irish Travelers are perceived and treated. Because of different economic and socio-cultural backgrounds, as well as the wider social view fueled by the political discourse and unjust legislations, this group was found to be unwelcome in most UK schools and Ireland not just among other students but also from the perspective of the teachers and the community wherein the school is located. Instead of appreciating their culture and cultural difference they were perceived as social drop-outs, misfits or deviants – a problem group with a chaotic and disruptive lifestyle. Interestingly, among the many other obstacles, Hill and Cole maintained, that excluded students have to overcome are the negative attitudes of the teaching staff, themselves. These attitudes include ignorance from lack of awareness, and which range through low expectations to “deficit model” assumptions about the learning capacities of bilingual students. (p252) The students in schools are also influenced by the social perspective on minority students. The refugees must deal with discrimination from British students in school, classroom and the playground. This unfortunate situation only reproduce the range of negative and dehumanizing images of refugees that children have learnt in the wider society. Impact on Young People The negative attitudes fostered by: first, the governmental educational policy; then, the pervasive social attitudes and practices; the teachers’ poor understanding; and, the unwelcome and often discriminatory treatment by British student, adversely affect the educational opportunities of excluded students especially the minorities. The worst case would be that exclusion becomes tantamount to denying excluded students the right to a suitable education, affecting their future chances and opportunities in life. It is easy to understand that because of the adverse and unwelcome school environment, excluded students prefer to drop out of school entirely due to disaffection or perform poorly in academics. Gillborn, for instance, pointed out that: Young people excluded from school are much less likely to achieve 5 GCSE at grade A*-C than other groups… More than four times as many young people excluded from school fail to gain any qualifications at 16 compared with those not excluded. (p60) It has been found that exclusion in education can lead to the inability of young people to participate fully in social life. A study by Wright, Weekes and McGlaughlin (2000) on the experiences of several excluded African-Caribbean and mixed parentage young people found that the basic denial of an equal right to education, which emanates from exclusion, can have implications which extend well beyond the sphere of schooling towards the extent to which people can make effective choices, engage in decision making concerning their own lives, contribute to the quality of life in their community and have a voice in collective decisions. (p. 96) Exclusion also affects self-perceptions of the excluded students. For example, the classification of the excluded group as deficient students and the segregated school system wherein the disabled hare forced to study on their own special schools is a conveyor of belt of judgments that weigh the students down with low expectations. Specifically, along with bullying, exclusion is considered to be a strong predictor of risk in later life to depression, self-harm, tendencies toward suicide and criminality. (House of Commons 2007, p206) The Audit Commission, for example, found in its study that 42 percent of young offenders had been excluded from school. (Wearmouth, Glynn and Berryman 2005, p15) Effect on Social Work The previous arguments underscored why exclusion is a negative phenomenon that must be tackled. It is particularly disturbing, as with the evidence cited elsewhere in this paper, that there is a causal relationship between exclusion and juvenile delinquency. When the Labour Party came to power in 1997 up to the present, policymakers recognized that exclusion must be eradicated because it negatively affects the general stability and wealth of UK as a nation. Fundamental to this recognition is the promotion of the idea that schools have a valuable welfare role, in addition to their educational functions. This has led to the development of the so-called “whole school” concept, which aims to ensure that responsibility for problem solving is shared among all members of the school community and not simply regarded as the exclusive responsibility of specialist pastoral and welfare staff. (Davies 2008, p109) Now, it is in this area wherein exclusion affects social work. The school cannot accomplish the government’s objective of education inclusion without the help of agencies such those involved in social work. According to Dickens (2010), there is a recognition on the importance of emphasizing a coordinated approach in addressing exclusion and that citizens and social groups have to work together with the agencies of the state in order to achieve reform. (p32) For instance, given the “deficiency” variable in exclusion in schools, social workers can adopt a “resource model” in their activities in communities, especially those inhabited by minorities. In this model, social workers work with parents to extend existing services to activities that help children prepare for school. An example of this initiative is called the Sure Start program, wherein social workers work with disadvantaged parents of pre-school children in promoting physical, intellectual and social development of their offspring so that they can thrive and cope better when they do get to school. (Pierson 2004, p92) Conclusion Again, it must be underscored that exclusion has been part of the UK’s education system for a long time. Concerns about the issue in the context of equality and discrimination did not affect its incidence even at the height of the Civil Rights Movement that swept the globe from the 1960s to the 1970s. It is difficult to determine whether it would be easy to change this. One must remember that despite the existence of legislations mandating equality and inclusion in schools, the practice still continued to this day. Furthermore, exclusion in education highlights the dynamics of the wider social exclusion discourse in UK. It revealed the complexity and confusion in regard to what whether it is fundamental in achieving a fair and just society or that whether exclusion is justified. In this case, it is important to remember that exclusion is all about empowerment. Here, exclusion must be seen from the perspective of the excluded, their loss and its effect on society. This is significant because the mainstream society tends to blame the excluded for their impoverished position and see welfare dependency as morally corrosive on the grounds that individuals come to rely more and more on state handouts. (Ratcliffe 2004, p5) To empower the excluded means investing on programmes such as education reform and interagency initiatives to tackle the problem so that the excluded will have better chances on opportunities and, eventually, became less dependent to the state. Finally, it is also important to mention that education policy is part of the wider national strategy for international competitiveness and increased productivity. The problem about exclusion is dependent on this crucial dimension. The negative effects of this phenomenon in UK’s labor force and economy could lead policymakers to prefer reform over tradition in the education system. 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