ABSTRACT
Young people experiencing homelessness are exposed to extreme disadvantage and social exclusion. Their experiences result in reduced educational participation, leading to early school leaving and lower engagement with the labour market due to under-education. We employed decolonising research practices to foreground the concerns, perspectives, knowledge, and recommendations of young people experiencing homelessness regarding their experiences of school disengagement and exclusion. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with over 60 young people experiencing homelessness in Victoria, Australia. Many young people documented the interweaving of educational, personal, familial, and social demands and the negative influence of these on their ability to engage in school. Young people frequently articulated feelings of shame and inadequacy, consequences of the school climate and constitution within which they were stigmatised or excluded. Compounded by feeling unsupported in the school environment and internal sensitivities towards seeking help from school counsellors, young people reported disengaging from education and adopting self-exclusionary behaviours, which frequently culminated in early school leaving. The adoption of intersectional and collaborative approaches is required to decrease the culture of exclusion and stigma contended with by young people experiencing homelessness in the school environment.
I arrived at an outer suburban library to interview two young people who were currently experiencing homelessness. They chose this space as somewhere they said they feel safe and comfortable, where they can use the computers and read books. The librarian smiled when I told her this: “Yes, we get a lot of homeless young people in here reading, learning, asking for help with computers, chatting to older locals.”
The young couple arrived and chose to sit toward the back in the children’s section, cosily surrounded by happy picture books, colourful cushions, comfy chairs, and computers. In that hour of deep distressing conversation about growing up with family violence, drugs and alcohol, and then failing school and surviving street-life, children come and go with mothers and grandparents. With shame and sadness, the young couple looked over to what childhood could have been, should have been: laughter and learning, reading and reflection. The children often look at us with open curiosity and cheerful trusting faces. Their adults smile across at us in between reading, writing, and being taught the latest computer wizardry by their digitally savvy little ones.
I recall my migrant childhood, loving parents unable to afford encyclopedias and books, so Dad took me to the State Library. In Italo-English he managed to explain that his daughter needed a library card. He then knelt down and hugged me, “Here, Maria, are all the books. You are smart and will learn much more than your Mum and me ever did in our few years of primary school. I’m leaving you here and will pick you up in two hours. And we will do this as many times as you want.” He left and I began my adventures in my library-home-school.
Unlike the young people we’ve interviewed, I don’t know what it’s like to be homeless. I can’t imagine the loneliness, fear, and trauma. But I know the library as a home and a school, a travel agent into many worlds beyond my working-class neighbourhood, and beyond the gendered, racist, and classist restrictions of my school. 1
