The school bus: a facilitator and barrier to school attendance

Abstract

This case study records the voices of a group of young people from an isolated rural community as they reflect on their experiences of secondary school. The study was driven by a desire to develop an understanding of the connections young people make (or not) at school, to help develop understandings of how schools can be better places for their students. This part of the study focuses on one particular connection, the journey from home to school and finds evidence of complex and troubling relationships with these journeys. Evidence from this study suggests transport to school provided by the local authority (the school bus) appears to be both a facilitator and barrier to school attendance. The bus journey is considered to be a ‘dividing practice’ (Foucault, 1982) separating young people who can manage it from those who cannot.