Excluded Lives: Political Economies of School Exclusion in the UK

This Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) large grant aims to advance a multi-disciplinary understanding, and home-international comparison, of the political economies of exclusion, and how more equitable outcomes can be achieved for pupils, their families, and professionals.

The research is organised into three work strands running across the four years of the project.

• Strand A: Landscapes of Exclusion, is designed to examine the ways in which legal frameworks, policies, and practices of regulation shape systemic practice; and the patterns, characteristics and consequences of exclusion.
• Strand B: Experiences of Exclusion, will focus on families’, pupils’ and professionals’ experiences of the risks and consequences of exclusion.
• Strand C: Costs and integration, will examine the financial costs associated with exclusion; it will also integrate findings within and across jurisdictions to ensure that the learning is continuous as the research develops a coherent multidisciplinary understanding of political economies of exclusion.

​​​​​​Visit the website of the Excluded Lives project

Funder

Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Large Grant | Grant number: ES/S015744/1

Research team

• Edinburgh Principal Investigator: Professor Gillean McCluskey

• Co-Investigator: Dr Ingrid Obsuth (Health in Social Sciences)

• Co-Investigaor: Dr Aja Murray (Health in Social Sciences)

• Research Assistant, Dr Laura Robertson

Collaborating research partners

The research is led overall by Professor Harry Daniels and Associate Professor Ian Thompson at the University of Oxford’s Department of Education, working with Alice Tawell.

• Co-Investigators at the University of Oxford: 
  • Rachel Condry, Professor of Criminology at the Centre for Criminology
  • Lucinda Ferguson, Associate Professor of Family Law at the Faculty of Law
  • Mina Fazel, Associate Professor at the Department of Psychiatry
• Co-Investigators at Queen’s University Belfast:
  • Laura Lundy, Co-Director of the Centre for Children’s Rights
  • Tony Gallagher, Professor of Education at the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work
  • Gavin Duffy, Lecturer at the School of Social Sciences Education and Social Work
  • Gareth Robinson, Research Fellow at the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work
• Co-Investigators at the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research Data and Method (WISERD), Cardiff University:
  • Sally Power, Director of WISERD
  • Chris Taylor, Co-Director of WISERD
• Co-Investigator at London School of Economics: Eva Bonin, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre (CPEC)

Publications

• McCluskey, Gillean (17 March, 2020). BERA Blog, "Why do school exclusion rates continue to rise in England?"
• Daniels, H., Thompson, I., Porter, J., Tawell, A. and Emery, H. (2020). School exclusion risks after COVID-19. A report for ESCR. Oxford: Excluded Lives, University of Oxford.
  • School Exclusion Risks after COVID-19 (1.75 MB PDF)

Previous project associated with this one

This project builds on previous research funded by the John Fell Fund, "Disparities in rates of permanent exclusion from school across the UK" (£39,790).

Twitter handle @excludedlives 

website www.education.ox.ac.uk/research/excluded-lives