ABSTRACT
In this chapter we explore the processes of inclusion and exclusion in education by examining how Lovell Community High School recognises and responds to student diversity and how this is affected by local and national policies. The school is a mixed-sex school for 1,550 students aged 11-19, and a provider of day and evening courses and activities for adults in the surrounding area. We examine the contradictory pressures on schools that seek to include and value students in a competitive educational climate which creates economic and social pressures to devalue and exclude students. Thus we link the processes of inclusion and exclusion operating within and on schools. We follow this introduction with an account of government pressures towards selection by attainment between and within schools, and then describe the history of the school. We asked ourselves what an international audience might need to know in order to make sense of the processes of inclusion and exclusion at the school. We then present our analysis of how this school responds to diversity in terms of the ways students are categorised, grouped, taught, supported and disciplined. We suggest that such ‘organisational responses to diversity’ provide a framework against which students are valued, and inclusion and exclusion within the school can be understood. We then report our observations of classroom practice and the variation in participation of students they revealed. We conclude by looking at how national policies are shaping the future of the school.
