Learning on the Margins: Alternative Provision, Capital and Youth Justice (Palgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Society)

This book examines the role and significance of Alternative (Education) Provision (AP) in England, with a central focus on the inclusion and well-being of disadvantaged young people who are increasingly educated outside mainstream settings.Drawing on the author’s 35-year involvement as an AP student, practitioner, leader and researcher, it offers a rare insider-informed perspective combined with a critical application of Bourdieu’s capital theory. The distinctiveness of this title lies in its critical reframing of AP through the lens of capital theory, showing how social, cultural, human, and material resources are mobilized in ways that may sustain inequality while also opening spaces for agency and transformation.It situates AP within its historical, political, and policy contexts, exposing the hidden mechanisms that shape children and young people’s experiences and unfolding futures. Although rooted in England, the analysis speaks to an international audience.Equivalent forms of AP