'Have You Seen the People Who Just Stand Outside of MacDonalds? I Am One of Those People': Socially Excluded Girls and Their Experiences of Exclusion.

This thesis provides an account of a qualitative exploration into the lives of a group of young women who the Government defined as socially excluded - those excluded from school. Osier et al (2002, 2003) are the foremost researchers to focus on girls excluded from school. Their work can be described as innovative, however it lacked insight into social and familial factors, in order to understand the girls' experiences in biographical contexts. In response this research sought to explore the girls' social, home and school careers (Humphrey, 1993) and the roles and / or identities they constructed and performed in their everyday lives. More specifically exploration was made of how a group of socially excluded young women negotiated heteronormative femininities (and their use of agency and resistance in these negotiations). Task-based interviews were conducted with thirty-one excluded young women aged between twelve and sixteen at varying locations in England, some of which experienced high to very high levels of social deprivation (ONS, 2005). Photo elicitation exercises and further interviews were conducted with a sub-sample of 15 of these young women. Access was sought through Pupil Referral Units (PRUs), educational establishments for young people who have been excluded from school. Analysis of the data revealed the significance of the deployment of differing femininities by the young women. It is the cumulative evidence within the analysis chapters which leads to the proposal that sociological understandings of girls excluded from school and young women in general needs to be somewhat broader and more inclusive and take into account the value that individuals' place on differing femininities which may resist heteronormative femininities