Voices of disaffection: disengaged and disruptive youths or agents of change and self‐empowerment?

Abstract

This article presents findings from research conducted into school disaffection in the north of England. Bourdieu's concept of capital is utilised to explore the perspectives of 14-to 16-year-old girls undertaking vocational learning as a strategy for re-engagement. Data emanate from semistructured interviews in which social and linguistic capital in school is identified as a privileged feature of a select few. Thus, within the field of education, capital facilitates student empowerment, whereupon the lack of such can lead to marginalisation, disaffection and, subsequently, disengagement. However, voice is presented as a powerful mechanism for challenging the existing inequities of compulsory schooling in England by validating unacknowledged capital, recognising agency, and thus facilitating the self-empowerment of disaffected young people. Schools are encouraged to rethink their political stance to consider the potentially detrimental impact of a discourse that validates the dominant sociocultural capital and empowers only those students whose individual dispositions align with institutional practices.

Lesson Study and the construction of capital: empowering children through dialogic engagement

“…Our findings show, however, that in the micro levelwhere teachers implement policy according to the contextual needs of the school and their own professional values -LS can offer a grassroots-approach to challenging inequalities. Previously marginalised children will continue to be marginalised whilst their lack of capital constrains them, and this more often than not generates disaffection that leads to disengagement (Allan and Duckworth 2018).…”

“…As such, these can impact on pedagogical knowledge, a term which we employ to refer to 'the specialised body of knowledge of teachers for creating effective teaching and learning environments for their students' (Guerriero 2017, 13). In this way, teachers reflect on, and evaluate, the impact of teaching practices on children, resulting in opportunities to challenge the many educational inequalities that are played out and perpetuated in schools, such as the social disadvantage that can create perceptions of cultural inferiority, particularly where children are deemed ill-equipped to compete academically (Allan and Duckworth 2018;Reay 2001;Willis 1978). Such perceptions can affect the extent to which children feel free to make choices and can impact on how and what these children learn in the classroom.…”