Locked Out: Understanding and Tackling School Exclusion

Schools work continually to keep students with challenging and difficult behaviour engaged in education. The message of this book is that more can and needs to be done. The audience of this book includes all those who work with excluded children: school, health and justice personnel; school trustees, parents and community workers.

School exclusion is a world-wide practice that disproportionately affects children from groups identified as at-risk. These students come from low-income backgrounds, are indigenous Australians, Māori and Pasifika students and many have disabilities. Being excluded from school is linked to low school achievement and youth offending, so keeping young people in school is crucial to the health of our communities.

This is the first book to describe school exclusion practices in the local context in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. It presents accessible, locally based research and includes the voices of excluded students, their parents and those who speak for them.