Evidence of the negative effects of school exclusion for young people is growing (Madia et al. 2022; Obsuth et al. 2023), yet little research exists around the wider effects of school exclusion on the families of excluded pupils. A small number of studies have highlighted the impact of school exclusion on family dynamics, parental mental health and parental employment (eg Michelmore 2019), as well as parental identity as parents face feelings of shame and stigmatisation and share ‘the burden of exclusion with their child’ (Parker et al. 2016:146). Others have also pointed towards the classed, raced and gendered experiences of the school exclusion process and parent-professional interactions (Demie 2023). However, greater clarity in how we conceptualise and describe what happens to families of excluded pupils is needed. In this paper, we look beyond the boundaries of education to the field of criminology and punishment theory as a way to begin to think about the effects of school exclusion on the families of those who are excluded and illuminate the social and relational ramifications of school punishment (Garland 1990). In particular, we will draw on the concept of symbiotic harms developed by Condry and Minson (2021). The term symbiotic harms was originally devised as a way to explore the effects of imprisonment on families of prisoners and describes ‘negative effects that flow both ways through the interdependencies of intimate associations such as kin relationships’ (Condry & Minson 2021:548). Such harms are characterised as being relational, mutual, non-linear, agentic, and heterogeneous (Condry & Minson 2021). Drawing on data from nine parents and carers in England, collected as part of the Excluded Lives study: The Political Economies of School Exclusion and their Consequences, we will explore whether there is conceptual scope to extend the concept of symbiotic harms to study the effects of school exclusion on parents, carers and the families of those who are excluded.

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