Essay: From Social Inclusion To Social Exclusion

It is no secret to anyone who has attended; high school isn 't easy for those who attend. Students must learn to effectively navigate rigorous academic, political and social pathways. To take a wrong turn on one of these pathways is to tip the highly unstable scales from social inclusion to social exclusion. Social exclusion manifests itself in many ways: failing grades, poor attendance, isolation, and (as advertised most frequently in media campaigns) bullying. Bullying, imagineably, easily includes and leads to poor academic performance, attendance, and also varying degrees of isolation. According to Bill Page in his book "At Risk Students," these consequences form when a student has not navigated the academic, political and social pathways in a "successful" manner- one that will lead to graduation- and instead become "at risk students." (24). When a student has certain pathways made unavailable, often due to race, class, gender or sexuality, socially exclusionary symptoms of a school system …show more content…
This is in addition to whatever other demographics they may be a part of within a public high school institution not necessarily made for all students.Within a status hierarchy, lgbt+ students are the social pariah within each level, making it difficult for any lgbt+ student to succeed socially, academically or politically. Within the very structure of the public high school system, there are systems of oppression specifically (although often inadvertently) oriented towards lgbt+ students. As those students who identify within the community navigate the pathways leading towards success, there will be many roadblocks for them. Many of which are created by public school policies that become exponentially more detrimental in high school, and effectively lead to surplus social and academic exclusion, even if they are not openly supporting such side