The impact of exclusion on peers’ education and labour market outcomes

Studies have found that excluding a pupil from school harms their education and employment prospects and increases their chance of engaging in criminal activity.

However, evidence from other countries shows that the presence of disruptive children at school can have a negative impact on their peers’ achievement, for example by increasing misbehaviour in the classroom. Significantly more research has been conducted from the perspective of the excluded child than from their peers’ perspectives. There is no evidence specific to England on the potential spill-over effects of exclusion on former peers, or on the impact on new peers when excluded pupils are enrolled at a new school. This project will aim to answer three research questions:

1. Does excluding pupils affect non-excluded peers’ education and labour market outcomes?
2. Does moving excluded pupils to a new mainstream school affect their new peers’ education and labour market outcomes?
3. How do these effects vary according to:

• the number of years passed since the exclusion and re-integration
• the length of time it takes to place the excluded child back into mainstream schools
• the reason for exclusion
• the characteristics of non-excluded children and new peers
• and school size and the proportion of children excluded/re-integrated?