Young offenders have been described as being disengaged with education and learning. The secure custodial setting presents an opportunity to re-engage young offenders by understanding the nature of their disengagement. Key findings of this PhD research are that:

• A focus on improving the educational experiences of young offenders should be a priority in secure custodial settings. Previous educational experiences of young offenders are negative, characterised by boredom, disengagement and school dropout, reflecting the findings of previous research in this area.

• The nature of disengagement in young offenders is distinct requiring appropriate responses for successful re-engagement. Emotions and relationships particularly characterised the nature of disengagement in young offenders. Understanding and responding to this was an important aspect of successfully re-engaging young offenders with education and learning.

  Re-engaging young offenders in a custodial setting with learning that was authentic and relevant to them was possible through a process of authentic inquiry, providing certain conditions are met. Authentic inquiry is a process of inquiry, action and knowledge generation to build personally relevant knowledge useful towards achieving a specific outcome. The conditions which need to be met include relevance of the task, a supportive mentor and enabling autonomy and agency in learning.

• The secure setting needs to take measures which facilitate the conditions for successful re-engagement. The structures of the secure custodial setting can act as a barrier to engagement with learning in terms of managing emotions, relationships with peers, teachers and care staff. Flexibility in these structures can result in considerable gains for effective re-engagement.