Otherness, responsibility and knowledge

The benefits of the interconnection of subcultural and institutional interpretations in the internal discourse of an alternative grammar school

Abstract

The study, based on the results of an ethnographic research, examines the internal discourse of an alternative grammar school (the „Diákház”) in Budapest. The students of the Diákház are early school leavers who mostly feel some rejection towards adults, teachers and schools. The teachers of the Diákház are trying to work with these students partly with pedagogical methods different from traditional ones, partly with the shaping of the school discourse. This paper shows the main (subcultural and institutional) themes of the school discourse, and how the themes of the subcultural construction and interpretation of „otherness” (difference, diversity, deviance, marginality, resistance) intertwined with the central concepts of school operation (independence, responsibility, knowledge) help teachers and students to work together. By maintaining the link between the two parallel interpretive frameworks the teachers of the Diákház have developed a unique approach within Hungarian education for successfully working with deviant and dropout students and for dealing with the problems that lead them to drop out.