Challenging Dominant Views on Student Behaviour at School

Book excerpt: This is a deliberately provocative book. It critiques current student behaviour management practices, seeks to explain the flawed assumptions that justify those practices, and proposes how things could be better for children in our schools if different practices were adopted. It is one of the few books to offer alternative ways of addressing the issues associated with student behaviour at school, and exposes the field to serious and sustained critique from both a research perspective and a children’s rights ideological stance. The authors address the following questions: What ideas dominate current thinking on student behaviour at school? What are the policy drivers for current practices? What is wrong with common behaviour approaches? What key ideologies justify these approaches? How can we present ethical alternatives to current approaches? How can a human rights perspective contribute to the development of alternative approaches? In exploring these questions and some ethical alternatives to the status quo, the authors suggest practical ways to ‘answer back’ to calls for more authoritarian responses to student behaviour within our schools. In doing so, the authors advocate for reforms on behalf of children, and in their interests.