The presentation will outline the transdisciplinary conceptual framework developed for an ongoing research project that seeks to understand student responses to exclusionary practices and reshape how inclusion and exclusion is understood within education (Bamsey et al., 2025; Done & Knowler, 2021, 2022, 2023) The project addresses the failure of the English education sector to include already marginalised student groups but is relevant in a European context given continuing inclusion-related policy iterations. Such research can be positioned as politically sensitive given the difficultly in investigating exclusionary processes in schools. Teachers, schools, and other stakeholders are reluctant to acknowledge such practices and investigations into them are likely to encounter resistance (Done, 2022). Stakeholders include municipal authorities under political pressure to demonstrate their commitment to reducing varied types of exclusion while, paradoxically, refusing to acknowledge that some of these types do, in fact, occur routinely in local schools; a current collaborative study will be described to illustrate this paradox and to underline the importance of theoretical analytical frameworks in research into school exclusions.

Exclusionary practices are widely defined here and include ‘coerced home education’ and ‘off rolling’, but also inappropriate disciplinary practices. ‘Off rolling’ involves varied illegal practices (Bradbury, 2018), for example, ‘managed school moves’ for disruptive pupils (Gazeley et al., 2013) and ‘coerced’ (rather than ‘elective’) home education whereby parents are pressurised into removing children from school and taking responsibility for their education (Office of the Schools Adjudicator, OSA, 2017; Office for Standards in Education [Ofsted], 2019; Done & Knowler, 2021). Where exclusion is legally sanctioned, ‘persistent disruptive behaviour’ is the most common reason given by schools to justify an exclusion while, in Ofsted commissioned research, teachers reported that their schools will exaggerate accounts of poor behaviour in order to justify an otherwise unwarranted exclusion (YouGov, 2019). Already marginalised demographics and demographic intersections are disproportionately affected by exclusionary practices (EPI, 2019) pointing to structural inequities in the education system even though, at school level, teachers may not recognise their conduct towards individual students as discriminatory. Minor infringements of school behaviour policies can invite more punitive responses depending on the demographic in question (Migliarini & Martin, 2025), potentially alienating students which, in turn, increases the likelihood of exclusion.   

The ‘small things’ of our title refers to incidents, interactions or micro-practices that may be perceived as insignificant by educators but which, nevertheless, have a variable and potentially profound effect on the identities, subjective configurations, and future actions of students, while the ‘bigger picture’ describes an educational landscape characterised by high rates of formal school exclusion and growing numbers of home-educated young people, where neither may be in their best interests and both undermine claims around inclusive education.

The conceptual framework to be presented follows an identification of resonances between the theorising of Vygotsky (1994) and Foucault (1997) can explain how events which may not be perceived to be exclusionary by educators may contribute to school exclusion or the self-exclusion of students through home education. Foucault’s (1997) conceptualisation of emotion as a practice of individual truth-making can be situated within an ars pathetica as defined by Chisholm (2020) and Vygotsky’s concept of perezhivanie (1994) highlight feeling and serve to focus attention on the subjective conditions of future actions and, more specifically, on future actions that deviate from the normative standards enshrined in school behaviour policies.    

The methodological approach which informs this conceptual endeavour is Foucauldian and known as problematisation (Baachi & Bonham, 2014). Although it is commonly employed in policy discourse analysis, following Foucault (1978), it is relevant to any form of discourse (conceived as habitual practice as well as speech and text) since, fundamentally, it involves the questioning of any underlaying and taken-for-granted presuppositions and rejection of a naïve realism. The politically sensitive research collaboration to which we will refer can be problematised as an example of neoliberal impression management (Ball, 2003). This collaboration will inform municipal initiatives that, ostensibly, are intended to reduce the rates of legal school exclusion and elective home education in a local area. The underlaying presuppositions include: that legal exclusions are a necessary and legitimate practice; that home education is invariably elective and not coerced; and that the home education of children already on a safeguarding register is an acceptable practice. These sedimented presuppositions foreclose critique or the problematisation of much related policy and practice or, indeed, of the objectives and organisation of the prevailing education system. For university-based researchers in the UK that are being charged with developing a civic role and supporting municipal projects, the paradox that such collaborations entail is self-evident; there is a high risk of reinforcing unquestioned and unquestionable or incontestable presuppositions even as efforts to reduce school exclusions are welcomed. Such paradoxes suggest a ‘cruel’, and strategic, ‘optimism’ (Moore & Clarke, 2016) that, in Foucauldian terms, serves a governmental purpose. Changes in practice at school level are likely to be resisted in the absence of legislation and shifts in the policy context. Nevertheless, the conceptual framework to be presented, which can be characterised methodologically as a problematisation of existing school micro-practices (that may culminate in legal and illegal exclusions or self-exclusion through home education) will inform future larger-scale research and demonstrate the need for structural and organisational change if equity in education is to be achieved.

Systemic inequities in legal and illegal school exclusions (Gazeley et al., 2015; EPI, 2019) are sustained at the micro-practice level. Taken together, Vygotsky’s (1994) concept of perezhivanie and Foucault’s (1997) conceptualisation of emotion as a practice of truth-making can facilitate better understanding of how students interpret or make sense of micro-practices in school settings; and of how their future actions will be affected, particularly where these micro-practices are potentially or overtly discriminatory and stigmatising. Comments, actions, and practices that teachers may perceive as everyday implementations of school behaviour policy or routine expressions of the prevailing school culture may be damagingly exclusionary in their effect on students’ identities and conduct. Greater sensitivity to the relationship between structural inequities and everyday practice in schools may reduce the likelihood of behaviours that, from a Foucauldian perspective, can be construed as resistance to punitive and normative school regimes; while, from a Vygotskian perspective, the call for increased awareness and sensitivity on the part of teachers is likely to focus attention on the wider social context and students’ own sense-making of their emotional reactions to punitive or inappropriate micro-practices.

Baachi, C., & Bonham, J. (2014). Reclaiming discursive practices as an analytic focus: Political implications. Foucault Studies, 17, 173-192. Ball, S. J. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/0268093022000043065 Bamsey, V., McNair, L., Campbell, H. (2025/forthcoming) Antiracism in early childhood education: Theory and practice. Bloomsbury. Bradbury, J. (2018). Off rolling: Using data to see a fuller picture. https://educationinspection.blog.gov.uk/2018/06/26/off-rolling-using-data-to-see-a-fuller-picture/ Chisholm, A. (2020). Foucault, affect, history: On the art of feeling. [Unpublished thesis], University of Western Ontario, 7293. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/7293 Done, E.J. (2022) Researching ‘off rolling’ as a sensitive topic: ‘Hard’ evidence and experiential accounts. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 27(3), 243-253. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632752.2022.2152589 Done, E. J., & Knowler, H. (2021). ‘Off-rolling’ and the art of visibility / invisibility: exploring senior leaders’ views of ‘strategic’ school exclusion in England British Education Research Journal. DOI: 10.1002/BERJ.3709 Done, E. J., & Knowler, H. (2022). A tension between rationalities: ‘Off-rolling’ as gaming and the implications for head teachers and the inclusion agenda. Educational Review, 74(7), 122-1341. DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2020.1806785 Done, E. J., & Knowler, H. (2023). Introduction. In E. J. Done & H. Knowler (Eds) International perspectives on exclusionary pressures in education (pp.1-19). Palgrave-Springer. EPI (Education Policy Institute) (2019). SEND and alternative provision: is policy on the right path? https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/send-and-alternative-provision-policy/ Foucault, M. (1978). History of sexuality. Random House. Foucault, M. (1997). Ethics: Subjectivity and truth. P. Rabinow (Ed.). New Press. Gazeley, L,. Marrable, T., Brown, C., & Boddy, J. (2013) Reducing inequalities in school exclusion: Learning from good practice. Report for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England. University of Sussex. Migliarini, V., & Martin, O. (2025 / forthcoming) ‘I was low-key disruptive, but teachers always saw me as trouble’. Addressing discipline disparities of Black girls in English secondary schools. In E. J. Done & H. Knowler (Eds) International perspectives on exclusionary pressures in education (pp.1-19). Palgrave-Springer. Moore, A., & Matthew, C. (2016) ‘Cruel optimism’: teacher attachment to professionalism in an era of performativity, Journal of Education Policy, 31(5), 666-677, DOI:10.1080/02680939.2016.1160293 OSA (2017) Office of the schools adjudicator annual report: September 2016 to August 2017. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/annual-report-of-the-chief-schools-adjudicator-for-england–3 Vygotsky, L. S. (1994). The problem of the environment. In R. Van Der Veer & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Vygotsky reader (pp. 338–354). Blackwell. YouGov (on behalf of Ofsted) (2019). Exploring the issue of ‘off-rolling’. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/teachers-say-parents-need-help-to-resist-’off-rolling’-pressure