School exclusion has long and short-term consequences in terms of academic achievement, well-being, mental health, and future prospects.

Yet there are great differences in the rates of permanent school exclusion in different parts of the UK with numbers rising rapidly in England but remaining relatively low or falling in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. For example, in the latest available figures there were 7,894 permanent exclusions in England (2018-19) compared to just three in Scotland (2018-19). However, these figures do not account for many informal and illegal forms of exclusion. In this research, home international comparisons of historical and current policy, practice and legal frameworks relating to school exclusion will be conducted for the first time.

Previous research and official government statistics show that exclusions are far more likely to affect pupils from specific groups e.g. low-income families, from some ethnic backgrounds, or with special needs. This project therefore aims to highlight ways in which fairer and more productive outcomes can be achieved for pupils, their families, and professionals by comparing the ways in which policy and practice around exclusions differ in the four jurisdictions.

The research is being undertaken by the multi-disciplinary (criminology, economics, education, law, psychiatry, sociology, and disability studies) and multi-site (the universities of Oxford, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Queen’s Belfast, and the LSE) Excluded Lives Research Team established in 2014. In education, policy discourse has tended to find individual reasons for exclusion rather than develop an understanding of exclusion in the wider context of education, social policy and the law. In contrast, this research assumes that school exclusion cannot be treated as separate from the general welfare and education systems. Education policy has also largely ignored the work conducted by school and welfare professionals that attempts to address disruptive behaviour to prevent more serious incidents. There is a tension between the pressure on schools to perform academically and the need to make adequate provision for children and young people from disadvantaged social groups. As a consequence, pupils who do not conform to the rules can be excluded to the social margins of schooling.

The team will engage directly with the Third Sector, professionals at school, local authority and jurisdiction government level, as well as with disadvantaged and excluded pupils and their families.