'Dropping Out', Drifting Off, Being Excluded: Becoming Somebody Without School / Edition 1

by John Smyth, Robert Hattam

Overview

This book deals with one of the most urgent, damaging, and complex issues affecting young lives and contemporary society in general - the escalating high school dropout rate. Though against the wishes of teachers and school administrators, young people's decision to leave school is usually made under circumstances that provide little time or space for discussion. This book provides a disturbing account of how students' voices are over-ridden - lost in the imposition of curriculum and the rush to impose testing, accountability, and management regimes on schools. 'Dropping Out', Drifting Off, Being Excluded reveals the complex stories that surround identity formation in young lives and the interactive trouble as young people struggle to be heard within inhospitable schools and an equally unhelpful education system.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820455075
Publisher:	Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
Publication date:	02/04/2004
Series:	Adolescent Cultures, School, and Society , #22
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

The Authors: John Smyth is Emeritus Professor of Education at Flinders University of South Australia. He was Founding Director of the Flinders Institute for the Study of Teaching, Associate Dean of Research, and a Senior Fulbright Research Scholar. He holds positions in Australia as Research Professor at Edith Cowan University; Adjunct Professor at Charles Darwin University; Professorial Fellow at the University of Ballarat; and Visiting Professor, University of Waikato and Massey University in New Zealand. He is the author and editor of many books, including, most recently, Critical Politics of Teachers’ Work: An Australian Perspective (Peter Lang, 2001). Research for the current book was undertaken in his capacity at Flinders and Edith Cowan universities.
Robert Hattam is a faculty member at University of South Australia and Research Manager of the Flinders Institute for the Study of Teaching. He is a co-author of Teachers’ Work in a Globalising Economy (2000), and Schooling for a Fair Go (1998).

Table of Contents

	List of Illustrations	ix
	Acknowledgments	xi
Part I	Introduction
Chapter 1	Capturing the Voices of Early School Leavers	3
	Getting Oriented	3
	Interrupting Habitual Readings	12
	Naming the Problem--Perspective Is Everything	17
	Developing a Research Orientation	19
	Dialectical Theory-Building	27
	Representing Lives in Portraits	29
	Organization of the Book	32
Part II	Constellation of Orienting Concepts
Chapter 2	Contextualizing Early School Leaving: Globalization, the State and Schools	37
	Navigating a Transition	37
	Mapping Context--Globalization	38
	The Process of Economic Globalization	40
	Socio-cultural and Technological Globalization	47
	"Going for a Job"	48
	"Getting Training"	54
	"Going to University"	54
	The Nature of the Contemporary Secondary School	56
	What Does All of This Mean?	66
Chapter 3	Becoming Somebody with or without School	67
	Youth Identity Formation	68
	Interferences	73
	The Impact of Media Culture	74
	Children Are Now Seen and Want to Be Heard	76
	Thinking about Suicide	80
	The Use and Abuse of Illegal Substances	81
	Friendships	82
	Becoming Economically Independent: Learning about Work without School	92
Part III	Individual, Institutional and Cultural Identities
Chapter 4	Doing Identity Work: Class, Race and Gender	97
	Class/Gender/Race in Constellation	98
	Class as a Site of Identity Formation	100
	Gendered School Leaving	113
	Gender Difference and Schooling	114
	The Wage-Labor Identity of Young Women	118
	Post-school Options: Aspirations for Their Future	120
	Harassment: Disciplining Gender Identities	123
	Dealing with Racism	128
	Interactive Trouble in Post-compulsory Schooling	131
Chapter 5	The Making of Young Lives with/against the School Credential	135
	How Did the Credential Construct Young People?	138
	How Did Young People Contest and Negotiate the Credential?	143
	How Did the Credential Constitute an Impediment to Completion?	148
	Whose Knowledge and Skills Were Celebrated, and Whose Excluded?	152
Chapter 6	School Culture and Student Voices in Early School Leaving	155
	School Culture as an Orienting Theory	156
	Cultural Geography of the School around Early School Leaving	161
	Voices of Students on School Culture	167
	Cultural Geography and the Crossing of School Boundaries	184
	School Culture and Youth Identity Formation	186
Part IV	Conclusion
Chapter 7	Grappling with the Mis-matches: Themes, Questions, Action	191
	Notes	197
	References	199
	Index	213