Shame, Anger and the Lived Experience of School Disengagement for Marginalised Students: A Recognition Theory Approach

Experiences at school are fundamental in shaping young people’s worldviews, sense of worth and willingness to engage, not only at school but also with wider society. This article seeks to gain a deeper understanding of processes of inequality and social exclusion by qualitatively investigating Australian young people’s narratives about their school experiences, paying attention to how relationality shapes schooling subjectivities. The framework of recognition theory is applied to analyse social relations embedded in and across these sites. The article underscores the difficulties disadvantaged students face in challenging their marginalised positioning, as these positions were relentlessly reinforced in their encounter with the educational system and institutional judgement. A student’s apparent ‘apathy’ and ‘disengagement’ towards school can in many cases be seen as resistance to exclusionary social relations. Schooling structures and processes taking account of young people’s relational struggles and strivings to belong may more successfully engage students at risk of disengaging.