ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book highlights the minority of pupils, or what Booth has termed 'the marginal esoteric'. By virtue of its variety and complexity, it is impossible to generalise about the thousands of disaffected young people in English secondary schools today on the basis of the small samples. Instead, the book reflects a large and untidy 'messy' set of knots and tangles. It aims to contribute to the advance of an interdisciplinary theory of disaffection in schooling. The book presents overview of the English education system and a history of pupil disaffection. Although by virtue of participating in school the pupils were not 'exiles' they were pupils deemed 'at risk' of becoming excluded. Thus, disaffection came to be viewed as an interpretive mechanistic and interactive response as pupils come to terms with definitions of their positioning both within school and in the larger community.
