Street-connectedness and education: understanding progress to facilitate access to learning

• In Event: Technology and education. Inclusive education for domestic and international students

Proposal

Street-connectedness and education: understanding progress to facilitate access to learning

Su Lyn Corcoran, Ruth Edmonds, Vicky Ferguson, and Siân Wynne

General Comment no. 21 to the UN Convention on the rights of the child provides an authoritative interpretation in relation to specific inequalities affecting street-connected young people (Thomas de Benitez 2017). However, resulting interventions often focus on abstract populations rather than the structural inequalities responsible for the emergence and exclusion of street-connected young people (Lucchini and Stoecklin 2020), affecting how they are positioned in relation to their access to and retention in education (e.g. Kaneva and Corcoran 2021). There is therefore a need to develop knowledge of street-connectedness and education that recognises the implications of multiple and complex traumas (Thomas de Benitez 2007) affecting street-connected young people’s transitions (back) into formal schooling, and how programmes enabling their access are grounded in local contexts (Corcoran et al 2020a; Le Fanu 2013).

This presentation explores the findings from a study focused on the wealth of experience and knowledge of practice held by organisations in the street-connected sector. We set out to understand how access to and retention in education for street-connected young people is enabled and what opportunities and challenges are inherent to including them. In deepening our understanding of the interplay of education and street-connectedness, and the extent to which the experiences of street-connected young people in education are considered by organisations developing programmes to support their access to learning, we aimed to inform the development of a position paper outlining common global issues for, and context-specific approaches to, education and street-connectedness. The presentation will focus on key findings from our online survey and regional online focus groups with practitioners, related to the development of effective practice and how this could inform social policy and/or future research.

Author

• su Lyn corcoran, Manchester Metropolitan University