Learning freedom : reflections on the lived experiences of disenfranchised students

Abstract

In this phenomenological reflective study students in a high school alternative program were invited to talk together about their school experiences. The transcribed text provided an opportunity for reflection on what the experience of school is like for disenfranchised students to help teachers know how to act in pedagogic relation with these students and all students. The students' descriptions were organized around the existentials of lived body, lived space, lived time, and lived relation with other. Themes recovered included neglect of basic needs, fixedness in time, segregation and exclusion, and control in relationships. The unifying theme that emerged was freedom and there is discussion about the potential of the institution of school to address physical, spatial, temporal, and relational conditions to develop student capacity for freedom.