No more colouring outside the lines? Exploring young people’s navigational agency in education

ABSTRACT

This article highlights the inequality in the Flemish education system, which disproportionately affects youngsters with low socioeconomic status. This inequality is attributed to the human capital approach characterising current educational policies, putting emphasis on educational outcomes. This results in education that homogenises and limits acceptable student behaviour and in which deviations from the norm are met with exclusionary and punitive approaches, consequently pushing vulnerable youngsters with a differing cultural capital out of education. Drawing on the capability approach, this article argues the importance of navigational agency in education, investigating the space students have to enter and exit education, resolving conflicts between education and other social practices, and reforming education by voicing their opinions. By analysing 66 Flemish secondary school policies, it is concluded that young people’s navigational agency is limited in the current educational landscape. Furthermore, most school policies lack inner consistency, highlighting the fact that there is no coherent pedagogical vision within, which raises questions about how thought through these policies really are.

KEYWORDS:

• Poverty and education
• Inclusive education
• School policy
• School discipline
• Capability Approach

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Juno Tourne

Juno Tourne is a PhD student at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy at Ghent University in Belgium. Her research interests include secondary education, inclusive education, poverty and the capability approach.

Jochen Devlieghere

Jochen Devlieghere is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy at Ghent University in Belgium. His main research interest lies in the use of pedagogical concepts in working with families and children at the intersection between child welfare, family pedagogy and Early Childhood Education and Care. Furthermore, he has developed an interest in the meaning of social research in broader society and children’s rights. He is also Editor in Chief of the European Journal of Social Work.

Rudi Roose

Rudi Roose obtained a PhD in Educational Sciences and is currently Professor of Social Work at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy, Ghent University in Belgium. His research interests include youth care and general welfare work, and especially the relation between responsive social work and managerial developments.

Lieve Bradt

Lieve Bradt is Professor of Social Pedagogy at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy, Ghent University in Belgium. She is also the coordinator of the Youth Research Platform. Her research focuses primarily on processes of inclusion and exclusion of young people in relation to education and leisure, and on the social-pedagogical mandate of social work practices.