In Norwegian history, the school for all is seen as a lever and a mediator for the nation’s democratisation, in the formation of an integrated culture, social cohesion, and solidarity. Facing broad socio-historical and political transformations, the visions of a school for all have been robust, albeit always being subject to discussion, rendered partial and in the process of becoming. Through ongoing dynamics of continuity and change the comprehensive school [Norwegian: grunnopplæring] has gradually widened its scope. Now, at the level of educational policy, including all students regardless of place of residence, social background, gender, ethnicity, ability and attainments, all through the 13 years of primary, lower and upper secondary education. In conjunction with these integrating processes, an ever-increasing mixture of internal differential structures has developed; special educational needs provision and a range of alternative education, in which groups of students in various manners are connected to and disconnected from the curricula, cultures and communities of the school.

 With an ambition to add to the knowledge of current processes of inclusion and exclusion within the school for all, the aim of the study reported in this paper is to investigate alternative education in upper secondary education in a Norwegian county, namely alternative VET programmes with extended work-practice, and how these programmes are connected/disconnected to the regular programs. This being the background, the study addresses the following research questions:

(i) What is the nature of the alternative programmes regarding students’ characteristics and experiences, curricula, organisation, administration, and funding, (ii) how do these programmes relate to the regular VET programmes, and (iii) how do these interrelations give form, meaning, purpose, and direction to the construction of the school for all.

The analysis of the alternative programmes is performed within the interdisciplinary field of educational sciences and draws upon a broad range of research which addresses ‘the school for all’ (Ainscow & Miles 2008, Vislie 2006), issues of dropout and expulsion from upper secondary education (Lamb et al 2011), and the purpose of education (Biesta 2009). Furthermore, an institutional approach is applied (Olsen 2009). From this position the construction of the programmes as institutional practices is seen as historically situated within specific socio-historical contexts, constituted by shared practices, rules, and moral and linguistic forms of meaning, which over extended periods are taken as given by the majority in the field. Although this perspective represents continuity, change is an inherent part of institutional practises; it takes place as institutions interpret and respond to external events and to social and political processes. Derived from these perspectives, our interest is to search for the bricolage nature of the alternative practices and to question how and why some aspects remain stable and how and why others change.

References: Ainscow, M. & Miles, S. (2008). Making Education for All inclusive: where next? Prospects, 38:15-34. Biesta, G. (2009). Good education in an age of measurement: on the need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education. Educational Evaluation, Assessment and Accountability, 21:33-46. Lamb, S. et al (2011, forthcoming), (eds.) School dropout and completion: international comparative studies in theory and policy. Springer: Dordrecht. Olsen, J.P. (2009). Changes and continuity: an institutional approach to institutions of democratic government. European Political Science Review, 1,1:3-32. Vislie, L. (2006). Special Education under the Modernity: From Restricted Liberty, through Organized Modernity, to Extended Liberty and a Plurality of Practices. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 21, 4: 395-414.