An ethnography of permanent exclusion from school: revealing and untangling the threads of institutionalised racism

This article focuses on the administration of disciplinary exclusion (expulsion) from school. It identifies a number of social boundaries between people that negatively affect students subject to permanent exclusion, to the extent that they can be seen as constituting incidents of institutional racism. For example, the high statistical currency of the English language and the lack of adequate translation facilities are shown to constitute social boundaries between people that undermine the participation of parents in school exclusion and inclusion processes. Age assessments for immigrant and refugee children are also seen to affect institutional responses to individual cases of permanent exclusion from school. Assumptions about what excluded students ‘need’ are found to sometimes be made on the basis of reductive skin-colour labels, and a disconnect is discovered between the discourses that school and family are socially authorised to adopt in discussing students at risk of exclusion. It is recommended that institutional racism in schooling is acknowledged and acted upon by both policy makers and practitioners.