Alternative schooling practices in rural areas: effects on student learning, community engagement and equity.

Abstract

This research project examines alternative schooling practices in two rural areas of Queensland, Australia. The thesis analyses the effects of these alternative practices on three areas: student learning, the engagement of parents and communities in schooling and on equity. The research project is positioned in the context of the pervasive influence of neo-liberalism in politics and economics and the effects of this on education and schooling. In this context, a narrow definition of the purposes of education has been emphasised and a deficit view of schools and teachers has emerged, underlined by a top-down accountability regime of testing and reporting that all but ignores the influence of contextual factors on student performance. This thesis utilises the theoretical perspectives of Charles Taylor, particularly his concept of social imaginaries, and Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, social fields, cultural capital and symbolic violence. A central theme in this study is the role of competition as a problematic in schools that creates barriers to learning, especially for students from low socio-economic backgrounds who can find them themselves at a disadvantage in mainstream schooling. This thesis reports on a qualitative research study of alternative practices in three schools in rural areas in Queensland. These schools occupy different positions across a spectrum of alternative school types: an alternative independent school with a holistic philosophy; an alternative pathways program in a state high school; and an alternative state-supported school for young people who have been excluded from or opted to leave mainstream schools. Research methods included semi-structured interviews of leaders, teachers, students, parents and community members to understand the experience of those involved in alternative schooling settings. Document analysis was also undertaken to highlight how the schools saw themselves, as well as discursive practices which were used to explain and communicate key elements of the schools’ educational ethos to their school communities and the wider community. Visits to each alternative schooling site facilitated quasi-ethnographic observations that were compared with the data yielded through the semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Findings from the research revealed a variety of alternative schooling practices across the three sites and also provided insights into their effects on student learning, parent and community engagement and equity in outcomes for students. Data analysis also highlighted how these schooling practices supported the engagement of marginalised young people in education through what are described as practices of ‘non-competition and cooperation’. The study findings have implications for approaches that could inform mainstream schooling practices. The research makes a significant contribution to knowledge by highlighting alternative schooling practices as emergent, alternative imaginaries within a broader field of schooling practices, and how logics of re-engagement of young people in education are both productive and reflective of community engagement in education. The study suggests that alternative schools can be ‘pedagogies of possibility’ by cultivating emergent alternative practices in education which are non-competitive, cooperative and non-violent.