This article reflects on some aspects of a doctoral ethnographic study of young people disaffected from schooling in a post-industrial space of ruin in a former coal-mining community in England. It considers how their experiences of resistance and refusal of schooling can, in the relational ethos of non-school support settings, come to speak back…

Oral history courses offered in the Cambridgeshire Fenland of England were designed to widen participation of isolated and disadvantaged adults and develop transferable skills in communication, information technology, and working together. The focus on these key skills was intended to raise self-esteem and increase self-assessment abilities. (SK)