Benefits of turnaround programs for disadvantaged youth: Reframing accountabilities
2019
Hundreds of programs around Australia support young people to participate in formal and nonformal
learning in order to disrupt cycles of disadvantage. They include accredited alternative schools as
well as out-of-school programs which, often, are organised around a shared interest such as creative
arts or sport. They are diverse in terms of size, curriculum and governance. What they have in
common is a central objective to help young people to ‘turn around’ their lives, away from poverty
and marginalisation, through meaningful, ‘non-school’ learning experiences. These programs operate
within a policy landscape that emphasises accountability and evidence-informed practice especially in
relation to educational reforms aimed at improving equity. Many programs themselves are committed
to ensuring and demonstrating their benefits. This presentation explores tensions between
54
the nature of these programs and the accountability agenda. Drawing on policy, scholarly literature
and program case studies, we elaborate and illustrate two key concerns. First, the widespread focus
on performance indicators omits critical dimensions of benefits both for young people and society.
For turnaround programs, funding commonly is tied to achieving immediate, instrumental outcomes,
such as academic test scores and transition into further study or work. Such indicators are indeed
valuable, but on their own are too narrow: lacking alignment with the experiences of marginalised
students, with social purposes of schooling, and with longer term sustainable outcomes. The second
concern is that evidence-based policy too often treats programs as though they exist in isolation, as if
in a laboratory situation. In contrast, there is widespread agreement among scholars and practitioners
of the importance of context, which therefore should form part of the evidence to inform policy. We
wrap up with implications for reframing accountabilities in practice, policy and research.
Keywords:
- Correction
- Source
- Cite
- Save
- Machine Reading By IdeaReader
0
References
0
Citations
NaN
KQI