Critical Interpretive Study of the School Completion Program: Rhetoric-Reality Contradictions in One Case Study School

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: Alliance of Critical Educators and Researchers

Abstract

This is a mixed methods doctoral study drawing on a critical framework (Friere, 1970, Foucault, 1994). I aim to problematize the issue of why, how and if an Irish government intervention (School Completion Programme) aimed at addressing Early School Leaving (ESL) is achieving its purported aims. Increasingly interventions aimed at addressing school completion and early school leaving use a market-led discourse of human capital (Carter & O’Neill, 1995) and deficit thinking (Valencia, 2012) apportioning blame and responsibility on the individual. This study identifies a policy reform emphasis on ESL for the advancement of human capital theory rather than prioritising education for transformative purposes of emancipation of the most vulnerable young people in Irish society.

Author

• Declan Mc Kenna, University of Limerick, Ireland