Alternative (Educational) Provision (AP) is increasingly positioned as a core component of inclusive education in England and parts of the global north and south, particularly in response to rising school exclusions, persistent absences, and pupils experiencing Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA). However, existing accountability frameworks remain dominated by narrow outcome measures such as attendance, behaviour and attainment, inadequately capturing the relational dimensions of inclusion. This paper critically examines the role of AP in supporting re-engagement of pupils experiencing EBSA; specifically, the emerging significance of digital learning. Drawing on and expanding social and digital capital theory, the article argues that meaningful inclusion depends on access or measurable performance, and on trust, belonging, support and opportunity—or social capital. The paper explores how digital technologies both enable and constrain inclusion, offering flexible learning pathways whilst risking reproducing inequalities through uneven access and digital literacy. A relational inclusion framework is proposed, integrating social and digital capital through the mediation of relational inclusion. This framework centralizes trust, belonging and participation as mechanisms for converting capital into positive educational outcomes. The paper concludes by considering policy and practice implications, arguing for accountability models recognising relational inclusion within AP and supporting equitable educational re-engagement.
Background: Adolescent leisure has undergone significant technological, social, and cultural transformations. However, limited research has explored how these changes are retrospectively interpreted across generations within a shared sociocultural context. Drawing on the Leisure Activity-Context-Experience (LACE) framework, this study examines how members of Generations X, Y, and Z in Galicia (Spain) remember and interpret their adolescent leisure experiences. Methods: A qualitative cross-generational design was employed. Thirteen participants took part in semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed through an iterative combination of deductive and inductive qualitative content analysis. Results: Sociability emerged as the most stable dimension of adolescent leisure across generations. The most significant change concerned the increasing importance of material, technological, and organisational resources for leisure participation. Participants also described a shift towards interconnected physical and digital leisure spaces, with digitalisation reshaping participation without displacing sociability. Conclusions: The findings suggest that generational change in adolescent leisure is characterised by adaptation rather than rupture. While activities, resources, and participation contexts have evolved substantially, the social meanings attributed to leisure remain remarkably consistent. The study highlights the utility of the LACE framework for understanding how continuity and transformation coexist in adolescent leisure across historical and technological contexts.
Sport-for-Development (SfD) programmes are often described through logics that distinguish between sport-centred and development-centred interventions. While the Sport Plus and Plus Sport typologies remain useful for identifying programme priorities, they say considerably less about who defines development, whose knowledge becomes legitimate, and how young people participate in interpreting the changes attributed to sport. This critical conceptual review addresses that epistemic problem by bringing SfD scholarship into dialogue with Freirean and decolonial pedagogy, epistemic justice, anthropology of embodiment, and situated experiences of youth and community sport in Latin America. Rather than proposing a third programme type, the article develops consciousness as a cross-cutting epistemological-pedagogical orientation through which either Sport Plus or Plus Sport may be reinterpreted. Consciousness is the central orientation, and pedagogical sovereignty is its political expression: the capacity of young people, educators, and communities to participate meaningfully in defining purposes, producing interpretations, negotiating values, and judging what constitutes meaningful change. Epistemic justice supplies its normative foundation, epistemic and sensory ecologies its analytical dimensions, and pluriversality its ethical horizon. The orientation is specified through four necessary criteria (epistemic humility, pedagogical sovereignty, pluriversality, and embodiment), recognising that knowledge in sport is produced not only through discourse but also through movement, sensory experience, relationships, memory, and territory. Illustrations from Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico, several drawn from the author’s connected scholarship, clarify these relationships without being treated as representative of Latin America as a whole or as independent validation of the framework. The article therefore proposes, as a theoretical position rather than a demonstrated transition of the field, an epistemic turn from delivery toward relation, from externally defined outcomes toward pedagogical sovereignty, and from universal developmental assumptions toward situated and pluriversal understandings of youth development through sport.
Background: Young mothers in rural South Africa often experience multiple psychological and social challenges that may affect both maternal well-being and child development. Poverty, stigma, limited educational opportunities, and inadequate social support are common in many underserved communities, increasing vulnerability to stress, emotional distress, and social isolation among young mothers. Although these challenges are well documented, little is known about how psychosocial experiences of young mothers are shaped by the interaction of individual, interpersonal, community, and structural factors in rural South African settings. This perspective provides an opportunity to move away from the view of young motherhood as an individual-level challenge by considering how family relationships, partner engagement, community attitudes, socioeconomic conditions, and educational environments interact to influence psychosocial well-being. Objectives: This study aimed to explore how psychosocial well-being among young mothers in Tshimbupfe Village is shaped by interactions among individual, interpersonal, community, and structural factors and to investigate protective factors that support coping and resilience. Methods: Qualitative exploratory design was employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 young mothers in Tshimbupfe Village, who were purposively recruited from the ISA Mathivha Foundation. Interviews were conducted in the local language, audio-recorded with permission, and transcribed verbatim. We analysed the data using a six-step thematic analysis approach to identify key themes. Ethical approval and informed consent were obtained before data collection. The study was theoretically informed by the Social Ecological Model and Resilience Theory, which allowed us to evaluate the role of psychosocial well-being and participants’ responses to adversity. Results: Six themes were identified: family rejection and limited support; partner neglect and low father involvement; socio-economic hardship; social stigma and isolation; educational disruption; and emotional distress with coping strategies. Financial insecurity, social grant dependence, and experiences of stigma that contributed to social isolation and stress were described by participants. However, some young mothers showed resilience and adaptive coping strategies. Family support, childcare, partner or extended family support, and opportunities to continue education were all factors that supported coping and resilience. Thematic analysis was based on the Social Ecological Model’s individual, interpersonal, community, and structural effects, and Resilience Theory led to a better understanding of protective and adaptive mechanisms. Conclusions: Young mothers in rural South Africa experience significant psychosocial burdens related to poverty, stigma, and limited support systems. The findings show that these experiences are generated through interacting interpersonal, community, and structural conditions, while resilience is supported by access to protective relationships and resources, which underscore the need for community-specific and policy-based interventions.
The legacy of chattel slavery continues to govern the sociopolitical conditions of the United States, and this means unequal access is a precondition for higher education. Many institutions deemed elite facilitated the proliferation of racist ideologies but retain prominence based on their exclusionary admissions practices, despite representing a small portion of higher education institutions. Historicizing higher education through the lens of foundational race relations can enhance appreciation of institutions already holding space for marginalized and disenfranchised students. In this essay, I employ two race-conscious theoretical frameworks to explain the ways Historically Black Colleges/Universities (HBCUs) subvert the racial hierarchy sustained through college admissions. Furthermore, given my disciplinary positionality I discuss the ways disciplinary knowledge within engineering education aligns with mechanisms of college access to constrain the study and practice of this profession. This essay aligns with scholarship framing college access as meaning whether it is granted and to where it is granted, advocating for eschewing institutional cultures where marginalized youth are further marginalized. Future research directions are suggested, including examining youth perspectives on their appraisal of HBCUs in this era of strong opposition to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies, and providing comprehensive analyses of access to engineering education provided at HBCUs.
