ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I consider how the conception of the learner explored in the previous chapter operated in these classrooms to exclude some children from positions of education success. I argue that ‘good’ learner identities are implicitly and explicitly linked to Whiteness and middle-classness in prevailing educational discourse and practice, and this rendered the inner city, minoritised and lower socio-economic status children at Gatehouse and St Mary's as a ‘difficult intake’, unintelligible as ‘good’ learners. At both schools, the children were discussed (as a group) in ways which constituted them as incommensurate with ‘good’ learner identities. This included comments on class, parenting, religion, language and ‘race’, both in combination and separately. I use the phrase ‘difficult intake’ here to sum up these negative discourses; this comes from a comment from Jim about “a school like this, with a difficult intake”.
