“Who cares?” Care, gender and secondary schools: the interesting example of the ‘sin-bin’…

A breadth of education and other social science literature explores gendered professional identities, practices and spaces across a range of UK educational institutions (e.g. Dillabough et al, 2009, Ioana, 2010, Gallagher, 2013). One key aspect of this has focused on the links between gender, care and early years settings and primary schools. In comparison, much less attention has been given to the role of caring within secondary schools (see Laurent, 2013, Gillies and Robinson, 2013 as important exceptions). Drawing upon research conducted within West London at an in-school Seclusion Unit, this paper seeks to identity the significance of gender in exploring everyday caring practices in schools. In doing so, the paper draws upon a growing Geographies of Education literature to explore how caring is produced and regulated within particular classroom spaces, and how everyday caring practices are inextricably linked to and embedded within broader institutional agendas and processes