Inequality, Poverty, Education A Political Economy of School Exclusion

Palsgrave Macmillan has sent us details of  Inequality, Poverty, Education A Political Economy of School Exclusion  by Francesca Ashurst and Couze Venn which was published earlier this year.

The authors develop a political economy and a genealogy of school exclusion in order to reveal exclusion to be a symptom of more fundamental issues relating to poverty and inequality, reflected in the role of the state in managing their consequences, particularly regarding juvenile delinquency. Using  archival and documentary evidence they uncover the roots of exclusionary practices in political and economic struggles going back to the 19th century. These conflicts, the authors claim, have had decisive effects on key shifts in social and educational policy from the Poor Law Reforms of 1834 to the emergence of the welfare state and the current neoliberal reconstitution of society according to the model of the market. In arguing that competing views of an equitable and just society underlie exclusion, the authors believe their analysis opens up a space for envisaging radical new approaches and practices for dealing with children in trouble.

Francesca Ashurst is an Honorary Research Fellow at Cardiff University, Wales

Couze Venn is Visiting Professor, Goldsmiths, University of London and Associate Research Fellow at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

This book will be reviewed in the June  2015 issue of the goodenoughcaring Journal.

This news item first appeared on the home page of the goodenoughcaring.com website on December 15th, 2014