Navigating the discursive tensions of the public university: the case of a South African student

As public universities seek to be locally responsive and compete internationally, tensions arise between expansion and equity, and between discourses of neoliberalism and social justice. This article focuses on how students navigate these tensions, and the implications for how they can act, interact and be. Norman Fairclough’s three-level view of the social and language, and his method of critical discourse analysis are used to analyse longitudinal interviews with an undergraduate science student. This student is, on account of his home and schooling, considered ‘historically marginalised’ at an historically-white, English-medium South African university. The results show how the student navigates multiple positionings that draw on notions of class, language, independence, progress, choice, care, and so on. It is argued that while universities should support students to navigate some of these tensions, there is a need to re-imagine structuring discourses related to the ‘normal’, ‘independent’ university student.     

Up or down and out? A systemic analysis of young people's educational pathways in the youth justice system in England and Wales

Many young people in the youth justice system in England and Wales are educationally marginalised and systemic barriers to their engagement with education persist. This article presents an analytical framework for understanding how education and youth justice practices shape young people's educational pathways during their time in the youth justice system with the aim of understanding the systemic dynamics that encourage or impede young people's engagement with education. It draws on data from a case study of 32 young people who were serving either a community or a custodial sentence under the supervision of one youth offending team in England and Wales. Using as analytical starting points Bourdieu's and Wacquant's conceptualisations of competing dynamics within the ‘bureaucratic field’ of state governance and Hodkinson's careership theory, this article discusses the interplay between exclusionary and inclusionary interests operating within and between the agencies of education and youth justice and the extent to which they play a role in sustaining young people's involvement in education or compounding their educational and social marginalisation.     

‘Go over there and look at the pictures in the book’: an investigation of educational marginalisation,social interactions and achievement motivation in an alternative middle school setting

The middle years of school represent a time of educational turbulence, serving to marginalise some students from educational opportunities. Much research has focussed on individual cognitive factors influencing educational engagement, with less attention directed towards social interactions. Theoretically positioned within an expectancy–value model of achievement motivation, this study draws on the lived experience of a 12-year-old student within an alternative school in South Australia, Australia, to explore how social encounters may contribute to educational marginalisation. Findings from a narrative case study employing a semi-structured interview suggested that connections exist between social influences, such as interactions with teachers and peers, and subsequent achievement motivation. This study suggests that social interactions are critical determinants to an individual's educational engagement, affecting educational ability, expectancy and value beliefs.     

Interrogating discourses of intercultural education: from indigenous Amazon community to global policy forum

This article investigates discourses of intercultural education, taking as its starting point two ‘encounters’ in 2010 with contrasting aims and expectations of intercultural education. One is the launch of the 2010 Global Monitoring Report, where intercultural education is viewed as a means of overcoming marginalisation and promoting inclusion, and the other is in a rural Amazonian community context, where intercultural education serves to actively compound processes of exclusion. The article examines these discourses of intercultural education, locating them socially, culturally, politically and historically, and draws distinctions between educational analyses of diversity that emphasise identity and difference and those that prioritise interculturalism. It exposes complex and intersecting dynamics of social change and political contestation in the Amazonian ‘encounter’, which question the viability of globalised (technical-adaptive) strategies for inclusion of people whose intercultural lives are characterised by abjection and marginalisation.     

Towards post-intercultural teacher education: analysing ‘extreme’ intercultural dialogue to reconstruct interculturality

The ‘intercultural’ is now omnipresent in most departments of teacher education in Europe and elsewhere. It can be implemented under the guise of, amongst others, multicultural, transcultural, global and/or development education. In this paper, I problematise post-intercultural teacher education. The context of this study is that of Finnish education. Famed worldwide for its ‘miraculous’ educational system, Finland is rarely talked about for dealing with diversities in education. In this article, I explore the impact of a course on ‘multicultural education’ given to a cohort of ‘local’ and international student teachers studying to become Newly Qualified Teachers. I taught the course myself and decided that since only 8?h would be devoted to the issue of interculturality, the course would have to help the students to learn to develop quickly critical competences towards the many and varied approaches to diversities that are ‘available on the market’. The methodology rests on the use of a documentary on ‘extreme’ intercultural dialogue that the students discussed at the end of the course. Set in Israel, the documentary follows a class in a multicultural school in Tel Aviv during the second Gaza War in 2008–2009. I hypothesise that the documentary, which is often conflictual, would help me to evaluate the students’ learning and how they discuss and problematise such a case of ‘intercultural dialogue’ in education and relate it to their future practice.     

Working with students as co-researchers in schools: a matter of inclusion

The research reported in this paper focuses on the process of involving students as co-researchers in schools. The study involved a process of collaboration with two secondary schools in an economically deprived city in the north East of England. Use was made of a framework for developing inclusion that emerged through earlier work. The framework has students' voices at its centre. Through an analysis of the research process, factors that are important when involving students as co-researchers in schools are discussed. The understandings gained through the study have implications for future research. It is argued that such approaches, which place students at the heart of the research process, can be viewed as a matter of inclusion.     

Beyond the difference: from the margins to inclusion

In recent years mounting evidence reveals that many children, for different reasons, do not receive equal opportunities for learning, and therefore are marginalised. However, despite the fact that many education systems have attempted to solve this problem and respond to the contemporary needs of all children by deploying a variety of policies for inclusive education, and despite the improvements already achieved, the phenomenon of marginalisation still persists as a difficult problem still awaiting a solution. The paper attempts to deconstruct the term ‘difference’ from a post‐modern point of view, and also considers it genealogically from a philosophical perspective. The purpose is to improve teaching practice in order for teachers to provide equal opportunities in learning for all students. Naturally, the acceptance of ‘difference’ stimulates thinking and expands the parameters of free will. It will therefore be considered that while broad margins (or the marginal) persist, the possibility of difference will also continue to prevail and thus require sustained liberalism in education.     

‘Like strangers in a new world … ’ Interrogating issues of access,belonging and participation of foreign students in private higher education in South Africa

Following the birth of South Africa's democracy there has been an increasing number of foreign students entering the country. In the main, students from a very unstable African continent see South African tertiary institutions as a beacon of hope in achieving academic capital. Due to their monetary value, foreign students are welcomed into educational institutions, creating the perception that foreigners are academically and socially included. However, spatial access is not necessarily synonymous with inclusion. This article captures the experiences of inclusion, exclusion and marginalisation of a cohort of African international students at a private higher education institution in Johannesburg, South Africa. The study argues that the nature of educational inclusion is more multi-faceted than bi-directional with issues of power, overtly or subtly affecting student experience. Students’ constructs of inclusion extend beyond formal acceptance and presence in lecture venues, to experiences of marginalisation, exclusion and alienation by both staff and peers. These experiences reinforce the students’ vulnerability in terms of academic success as well as social acceptance. Management teams at educational institutions have the responsibility to provide adequate support to foreign students who view themselves as ‘strangers in a new world?…?’     

Collaborative art-making for reducing marginalisation and promoting intercultural education and inclusion

The main goal of this study is to examine how teachers and students experienced the implementation of educational activities, materials and related pedagogical strategies of collaborative art-making. The activities were designed to strengthen intercultural education and inclusion practices, reduce social and academic marginalisation and increase the participation of marginalised children in the curricula, cultures and societies of schools. The current study examines only the implementation of activities in Cyprus. The findings of this study suggest that collaborative art-making allowed the voices of culturally diverse students to be heard, promoting the exchange of ideas and stories regarding diversity. Additionally, the implementation of the activities led to the development of students’ civic efficacy and democratic agency, while it contributed to friendship development.