‘Second Chance’ Education: accessing opportunity or recycling disadvantage?

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Abstract
This article reports on ethnographic field work carried out in Australia in a programme of ‘second chance’ education aimed at giving people, considered previous failures in mainstream education and with a background of homelessness, access to tertiary education. The article focuses on the relationships between groups of students within the programme of ‘second chance’ education being studied and explores the way that education can either reinforce disadvantage or offer access to opportunity. The article illustrates the way that individuals within groups can become constrained by the cultural resources available to them and also the way in which cultural options for individuals might be expanded through education.