Absent with Cause

• New Preface for the Reissue. Acknowledgments. Abbreviations. Introduction. 1. Danish Lessons in Practical Education 2. Alternative Provision in Britain 3. A Tale of Two Classrooms: The Rs That Count 4. School Phobias: The Myth of Labelling 5. Autumn Term 6. Ancillary Factors: Resourcefulness, the Fourth R 7. Spring Term 8. Self-Analysis 9. Leaving School: The Final Term 10. Student Involvement 11. Metamorphosis of a School: Three Rs 12. Conclusion: Implications for Mainstream Education. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Schools, Centres and Units Consulted or Visited.

Reviews for the original edition:‘This is a study of the practice of alternative education, largely based on an examination of the Bayswater Centre in Bristol, and its relationship with a similar Danish institution. The ethnographic accounts of the life and work of the children and staff are quite outstanding; the motivations and concerns of the “problem children” and the determinants of their identity and self-image shine out from the pages in a way that must give powerful illumination to many readers. It demonstrates not only the sociological imagination but also what it can deliver.’ – John Eggleston'Much has been written on the secondary school curriculum since the Great Education Debate, but I have read nothing more imaginative and practical than Roger White’s book. This is in part because he so rightly refuses to divorce curricular issues from their social context. From a hidden corner of the system, he has helped us to specify the directions in which we ought to grow.' - Professor David Hargreaves