Health, Education and Behaviour Change (HEBC) Research Group Behaviour Change Talk Series 2023-2024

Description

How Children Make Sense of Their Permanent Exclusion by Rick Murphy

A rising number of children are permanently excluded from school each year in England. Children’s experiences of exclusion are underrepresented in the literature, effectively giving prominence to the views and interpretations of researchers. This qualitative study uses semi-structured interviews to explore the ways in which excluded children story their experience of school exclusion (N = 18). Thematic analysis was used to identify trends in the children’s data, integrating key themes to develop an understanding of how children make sense of the exclusion situation. The main findings from this study are that excluded children tend to experience schools as misreading symptoms of social injustice, bullying, and special educational needs as misbehaviour and non-compliance. The children reported that exclusion behaviours were a communication of personal and social problems that were amplified by punitive school measures. Ways in which schools can implement these findings for behaviour change are discussed with key recommendations for employing these findings within schools and educational settings.

Period	22 Nov 2023
Event type	Seminar
Conference number	1
Degree of Recognition	Local