The description and management of difficult behaviour in schools has interested educational practitioners and researchers worldwide, including in the UK. Concerns have been raised about the use and implications of more dominant discourses, namely those of behaviourism and zero tolerance, for understanding student behaviour. This article presents…

In neo-liberal times educational policy and practice is being realigned more closely to the shifting imperatives of the market with damaging effects on the lives of young people. Whilst the rhetoric suggests that schools are safe, welcoming and caring environments for the benefit of all, the veracity is very different for significant numbers of…

Chinese parenting emphasises parents' responsibility in training and governing children's appropriate and expected behaviors, including good academic performance. As reflected by the Attendance Ordinance and the strong involvement of parents in children's study, there is continuous emphasis on parental responsibility in children's education in…

Benarty Primary School is situated in Lochore, Fife, Scotland. The school is proactive in developing self regulation; restorative and nurturing approaches. It aims to build resilience in all of its children, staff and families. Playground Pals have been established at Benarty Primary School since 2009 and as part of that programme, there have been…

This article focuses upon recent initiatives aimed at improving the management of disaffected students in Wales. Historically, schools in Wales over the last hundred years have consistently had to manage larger numbers of disaffected students, especially truants and school absentees, than in other parts of the United Kingdom. In her annual report…

In this article the author presents results from an ongoing study about a special education programme in Switzerland for students with behavior disorders. The study explores careers and identities of adolescent students, who were referred to so-called "Timeout-classes" because of behavior disorders (e.g disengagement, disruptive and aggressive…

This paper is concerned with findings about gender which form part of a larger ethnographic study. The study was undertaken during the author's employment as a local authority (school district) Pupil Support Officer, where the author's work involved the support of young people who had been permanently excluded (expelled) from school for a variety…

"Positive Unified Behavior Support" (PUBS) is a school-wide intervention designed to establish uniform attitudes, expectations, correction procedures, and roles among faculty, staff, and administration. PUBS is grounded in the general principles of positive behavior support and represents a straightforward, practical implementation model. When…

Alternative education programmes, in the form of vocational education and flexible or personalised curricula, are rapidly becoming established as a main plank in both mainstream and special schools' responses to pupil disaffection. In this paper, "alternative curriculum" will be used as an umbrella term to include all forms of curricula which are…

The establishment of the UK government's OFSTED (school inspection service), published league tables, standardised testing, the literacy and numeracy strategy, imposed external targets for improvement, performance related pay and the gifted and talented programme, show the present government's concerns with educational improvement. Schools have…

ACE is an independent national charity, whose trained advisers have been providing parents with support and legal advice for over 45 years. Parents ring the ACE advice line when they have a problem with their children's education. They call in with a broad spectrum of issues, ranging from what to do when their child has been excluded to how to…

In this paper, the author argues for a more humanistic approach to children and young people who face difficulties in their personal and social lives. Increasingly, young people in the developed world who are troubled or troublesome in school or in their neighbourhoods are categorised and labelled in terms of psychiatric disorder. The number of…

Shortly after coming to power, Tony Blair's New Labour government expressed its strong commitment to tackling the problem of school expulsion. The Treasury's 1998 Spending Review included the bold target to achieve "a reduction by one third in... exclusions (from 12,500 to 8,400 permanent exclusions a year) by 2002". This article gives an overview…