ABSTRACT
In this chapter I consider some of the purposes and effects of schooling in contemporary Europe in relation to processes of exclusion and self-exclusion of pupils and school leavers. I start by considering what various users of the term ‘exclusion’ appear to mean by it in the specific context of schooling. I then concentrate largely on certain, somewhat arbitrarily chosen, aspects of schooling in the United Kingdom, and especially England. In the conclusion I suggest that first, the conceptions of exclusion separately developed by Frank Parkin and Pierre Bourdieu have more explanatory value in the context of schooling than do those currently in use by European research agencies; and second, the history of mass compulsory schooling might be said to mark a movement from explicit, unconcealed exclusionary policies to ever more subtle strategies in which exclusion is presented in the concealed, mystificatory form of self-exclusion.
