The alternative provision (AP) research network (or APRN) is a collective of academic researchers, AP practitioners, and others who have come together because of a common interest in research about alternative provision.

At an APRN meeting in March 2023, the collective held a discussion exploring how we defined social justice in relation to AP. The ideas below set out the main themes which resonated with us. This paper seeks to provide a statement around which our future discussions and collaboration can be oriented. As well as this being helpful for the work and conversations yet to come in the APRN, this position should also help others to understand the research interests we hold as a collective.

APRN’s position on social justice and AP:

 At a time when AP is becoming increasingly prominent, social justice requires us to ask how this increased visibility might both help and hinder young people in AP, and the practitioners who work with them. In some ways increased visibility is positive: it means the marginalised and varied group of children and young people (CYP) that AP supports are no longer forgotten by those with the power to shape an education system which better responds to all children and young people. However, we also view the policy responses being shaped around CYP in AP with a degree of caution. These young people should certainly not be marginalised to AP and forgotten about, but they should not be suddenly and repeatedly discovered either, whether this is as a new social cause or as a social ill which is used to lever in funding. CYP, parents, and practitioners associated with AP need and deserve policy change which is thoughtful, informed by the experiences of young people, parents and practitioners, and based on evidence which is high-quality and draws on diverse methodological and theoretical traditions to invite discussion and reflection of best ways forward.

 This area of the education system has long existed and has long been marginalised. It is of the upmost importance to understand the systemic and structural reasons for this. The sudden and ahistorical discovery of children and young people in AP as a social cause and research agenda is not well placed to meet this challenge. What is needed is a fusing together of the embodied knowledge of those in AP with an understanding of the way in which AP is positioned in wider social, political and historical structures. Other national contexts - where forms of alternative education serving excluded and marginalised populations also have a long history – are other important potential sources of learning and ideas.

Inclusion means different things to different people. We suggest that the notion of equity may provide greater clarity to the aim of inclusion in education. The goal therefore being that all CYP are able to participate fully in all aspects of our education system, and are able to pursue social esteem under fair conditions without being held back by inequality or stigma.

We are also cautious about the framing of AP as ‘a fundamental part of an inclusive education system’ in the SEND and AP green paper and subsequent improvement plan. While this is a laudable goal, it positions inclusion as a concern for the wider system rather than the individual institution. Given the fragmentation of the schooling system and networks which play an important role in supporting inclusive local practice, we are concerned this could lead to some mainstream schools becoming more exclusionary in their practice.

We believe that social justice should offer both critique and hope to AP. In a sector which serves children and young people already pushed to the margins of society, critique is required to avoid the reproduction of social inequalities such as a limited curriculum, narrowed peer group, and restricted opportunities. In some ways the existence of AP is representative of structural inequalities in society. Hope is necessary for a sector already marginalised within the wider system and for practitioners working with many children, young people, and parents who spend their days navigating a supposedly meritocratic education system from a position of stark disadvantage.

Notable phrases from our conversation were that ‘social justice is about individual worth’, ‘if it is acceptable for some it should be acceptable for all’, and that ‘education should be an emancipatory project’. These are expanded on below using Nancy Fraser’s three-part framing of social justice as being about redistribution, recognition and political justice, before we offer a summary of our position

‘If it is acceptable for some it should be acceptable for all’ (REDISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE)

This was less connected to the specifics of practice in AP than to the social contexts from which young people come to attend AP. This was with a particular focus on the almost unimaginably different experience many young people who attend AP have had compared to other young people growing up in more privileged households in wealthier locations. Thus our focus was more on the investment, or lack thereof, into the communities in which young people who attend AP live.

This will likely lead us to asking questions about how young people in AP miss out on the intergenerational transmission of advantage.

‘Social justice is about individual worth’ (THE JUSTICE OF RECOGNITION)

 A lot of our focus during our discussion was on the stigma, shame, and deficit views that many children and young people in AP experience. This will often be related to their rejection from mainstream schooling, but this will likely be suffused with multiple and interacting inequalities. AP practice and research about AP should be attuned to inequalities related to class, gender, race, religion, poverty, health, disability, sexuality, and other aspects of difference. In tuning into these we seek to be life affirming and not stigmatising, recognising difference, prioritising meeting human needs and maintaining the rights of children and young people in AP.

This will likely lead us to asking questions about issues of recognition in AP settings and about why young people with these specific characteristics or life experiences have been marginalised and excluded from the mainstream school system.

‘Education should be an emancipatory project’ (POLITICAL JUSTICE)

 Our belief is that education should be of inherent value and that the experience of learning should enhance the individual’s power within societal systems by helping them to understand the collective nature of society and systemic power dynamics which compound privilege and mean that young people in AP will, in all likelihood, miss out in the intergenerational transmission of advantage. Education in AP should empower young people to discern power and privilege, articulate their embodied knowledge of exclusionary practices in society, and ask (difficult) questions.

 This will likely lead us to asking questions about the purpose of schooling and the ways in which society is structured such that young people in AP end up where they do and what we can collectively do about it.

Our position could perhaps be summarised as:

‘Social justice in education and social justice through education’

 In the short term we firmly believe that:

-          We should protect and learn from what is unique and valuable about AP; and

-          In working with young people who have been rejected by the mainstream school system, AP is well placed to be a site of learning for the wider system – AP practice and the embodied experience of everyone in these settings has much to contribute to the full participation of all CYP in all aspects of education within mainstream schools

In the longer term we believe that:

-          Systemic educational equity is desirable and should be our ambition; and

-          Practice in, and resourcing of, mainstream schooling, alongside the wider policy context, should be such that a fully comprehensive and equitable education system is our collective goal

The aim should be for all schools to become microcosms of, and build towards, a society based on parity of participation, where redistribution, recognition, and political empowerment guide and inform educational practice and the learning experiences of all CYP across our society no matter what privilege, or lack thereof, they were born into.