The construction and production of youth ‘at risk’

This paper looks at policy discourse around ‘youth at risk’ (YAR) by asking two questions: First, how have problems and solutions related to YAR been constructed by Governments? And second, how do particular technologies of Government (differentiation of schools, programmes, and course streams, and the funding and identification of students with special needs) work to produce YAR? Interviews with educators at an alternative high school suggest that although policies to address YAR pay lip service to social justice concerns, technologies that serve to normalize and pathologize different groups of students present challenges to educators who are trying to disrupt the production of YAR within schools.