How the education experiences of youth in care are explored in the qualitative literature; a scoping review

This scoping review aimed to explore the qualitative research on the educational experiences of youth in care. The initial search yielded 9913 sources. Following multiple exclusion steps, 18 sources remained, half of which were unpublished theses with eight journal articles and one report. There were 397 participants included in this review, most of whom were young women from the same female-only public charter school for court-involved youth in the United States. Participant characteristics were inconsistently reported, particularly race/ethnicity which was unknown for 45% of participants. One-off interviews and focus groups were the predominant data collection methods used in the qualitative research. None of the 18 studies utilised participatory or co-design methods. The poor demographic reporting and traditional research methods make it difficult to determine whose experiences the research is capturing, and produce doubt that the experiences of those most impacted by the care system are being understood in meaningful ways.