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The educational experiences and outcomes of care experienced children and young people is of longstanding concern. The pervasive inequalities they face suggest that current policies have been unable to respond fully to the complex causes of the problem. This paper reflects on a qualitative study into the educational experiences and aspirations of children and young people who are looked after in Wales. The project worked with care experienced peer researchers and drew on visual, creative and participatory techniques to explore 67 children's and young people's experiences of education and, importantly, their opinions on what could be done to improve it. This multimodal approach allowed space for participants to think through their subjective, mundane, but important, experiences that operate alongside, and interact with, more structural challenges. A range of films, magazines, artwork, and music outputs were developed to ensure that the project recommendations could reach wide and diverse audiences. This paper argues the voices of children and young people need to be given a platform to inform policy and practice. For this to happen researchers need to be creative in their approaches to both fieldwork and dissemination; harnessing the power of the arts to make positive changes in the everyday lives of children and young people.

The educational experiences and attainment of looked-after children and young people (LACYP) remains an issue of widespread international concern. Within the UK, children and young people in care achieve poorer educational outcomes compared to individuals not in care. Despite proliferation of research documenting the reasons for educational disadvantage amongst this population, there remains limited empirical consideration of the lived experiences of the educational system, as perceived by LACYP themselves. This paper draws upon qualitative research with 67 care-experienced children and young people in Wales. The sample was aged 6-27 years, and comprised 27 females and 40 males. Participants had experienced a range of care placements. Findings focus on how educational policies and practices alienate LACYP from dominant discourses of educational achievement through assignment of the "supported" subject position, where children and young people are permitted and even encouraged not to succeed academically due to their complex and disrupted home circumstances. However, such diminished expectations are rejected by LACYP, who want to be pushed and challenged in the realisation of their potential. The paper argues that more differentiated understandings of LACYP's aspirations and capabilities need to be embedded into everyday practices, to ensure that effective educational support systems are developed.

This paper revisits Diana Leonard's seminal paper "Keeping close and spoiling in a south Wales town", by drawing on one mother and daughter case study. Leonard focused on geographical closeness and the strategies employed by parents to keep their children living at home, rather than sending them to university. In contrast, this paper explores the contradictory nature of remaining geographically close, living within the family home and commuting to a local university. This paper argues that "keeping close" by remaining at home whilst studying cannot negate the psychological separation: rather the maternal relationship can be threatened by an "ambiguous loss", the loss of a loved one who is physically present but psychologically absent. In this paper, I focus on the psychological strategies employed to engender closeness and maintain continuity, under the impossibly constant threat and everyday reality of change. (Contains 4 notes.)

The "Anatomy of Economic Inequality in Wales" (2011) provides quantitative evidence for the pervasive nature of class-based inequalities in education, demonstrating that an individual in social housing is approximately 10 times less likely to be a graduate compared to those in other types of accommodation. This article moves beyond the baseline figures and argues that for marginalised, mature mothers re-entering education, the emotional cost is often one that they are unable to pay, and that practitioners and policy makers need to be aware of, and responsive to their situation so that retention and completion rates can be improved. The article presents case studies from two research projects, which aimed to explore and represent the educational experiences of working-class mature students in urban south Wales. The article focuses on the accounts of women who completed Access courses and gained places in post-1992 universities, focusing on their initial aspirations and later disappointments. The article examines the ways in which classed, gendered and relational positionings conflicted with their education trajectory and often contributed to their withdrawal from academia. (Contains 5 notes.)

This paper reports on the findings from a qualitative study involving 67 children, in or having left care. The research formed part of a project commissioned by Welsh Government which was concerned with educational experiences in Wales, UK. Visual and creative techniques were used to support children's and young people's participation in semi-structured interviews and focus groups and care experienced peer researchers took an active role in the fieldwork. The study identified some of the unintended conflicts, consequences, and challenges of well-meaning practice interventions, and highlighted the importance of working with and listening to the experiences of children and young people in care. It also emphasised the salience of children's and young people's relational well-being, something rarely considered in an educational context, and argued that the relational aspects of negotiating the care experience merit further attention. Participants' experiences suggest that there is still much to do in dismantling the structural barriers and the impact of being labelled as «looked after», but that by engaging with and listening to the accounts of young people we can move towards developing more informed and effective strategies that can improve both policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issues of anonymity of place, participants, and visual images are well documented in social science research (Wiles et al., 2008). However, in this article, I move beyond issues of the immediate concerns of anonymity to a wider application that encompasses the position of research participants, the researcher, and that of individuals who are unaware that they are a focus of research. The research study focused on the experiences of mothers and daughters residing in a marginalized housing area in urbanized South Wales, United Kingdom. The article draws specifically on data that present the darker side of family life and explores the affective landscapes of trust, confidentiality, silence, and the unintended consequences that encroach upon, and beyond, research relationships in indigenous qualitative inquiry.