Punish Them or Engage Them? Teachers’ Views of Unproductive Student Behaviours in the Classroom

Abstract

This paper reports on a study that investigated the extent to which student behaviour is a concern for school teachers. A questionnaire was used to investigate teachers' views about student behaviour in their classes. The results suggest that low-level disruptive and disengaged student behaviours occur frequently and teachers find them difficult to manage. Aggressive and antisocial behaviours occur infrequently. Teachers employ strategies to manage unproductive behaviours that locate the problem with the student. This paper argues that teachers could benefit from understanding how the classroom ecology influences engagement and therefore student behaviour, rather than focusing on 'fixing' unproductive behaviour.

Scaffolding Peer Collaboration through Values Education Social and Reflective Practices from a Primary Classroom

“…It is imperative when there is antisocial behaviour occurring that teachers intervene but it is often challenging to identify the best recourse (Sullivan, Johnson, Owens & Conway, 2014). Even though there are limitations to the generalisability of the findings of this small scale research the study provides an example of what teachers can do to address antisocial problems at a class level.…”

Wicked problems in special and inclusive education

“…Responding in an effective way to behaviours by students with a disability which warrant adult concern or action and in a manner which avoids educational exclusion This wicked problem includes, for example: concerns that many educators have uninformed, research-poor, views of child and adolescent behaviour which are profoundly unhelpful for their practice and that of colleagues (O'Neill and Stephenson, 2014;Sullivan, Johnson, Owens, et al, 2014); how to effectively meet the often pressing social, emotional and academic needs of students affected by the disabilities SEBD, BESD or EBD (Algozzine and Algozzine, 2013;Armstrong, 2014); the often unacknowledged role of poor mental health in behavioural (SEBD, BSED, EBD) classifications commonly used in education settings (Armstrong, Price and Crowley, 2015); the implications of recent initiatives to change or even discard these behavioural categories (Norwich, 2014), for example, recent policy efforts in England to introduce 'social, emotional and mental health' in replacement for SEBD, BSED, EBD (DFE, 2016;Norwich and Eaton, 2015); negative perceptions held by some professionals about psychologically distressed children or young peoplethat they are 'mad, sad or bad' (Macleod, 2006); the adverse psychological, social, emotional and academic impact of educational exclusion on individuals with a disability (Pirrie, Macleod, Cullen, et al, 2011); the role played by un-identified mental health needs in individuals labelled as having disruptive or challenging behaviour (McMillan and Jarvis, 2013;Oldfield et al 2015); the evidence base for ethical and effective interventions to reduce challenging or disruptive behaviour by students with a disability (Armstrong, Elliot, Hallett, et al, 2015); identifying replicable, beneficial systemic (whole-school, whole system) initiatives to better respond to challenging or disruptive behaviour in schools by students with a disability and avoiding educational exclusion (Macleod, 2010;McIntosh, Predy, Upreti, et al, 2014); how best to equip educators with the professional skill and understanding necessary to reduce the likelihood of negative behaviours occurring in the classroom and reduce the severity of conduct should it occur (Cooper and Jacobs, 2011); reducing negative behavioural labelling of students with a disability (Grosche and Volpe, 2013;World Health Organization, 2015); reducing the inappropriate use of sanctions by schools for behavioural transgressions by students with disability, especially given research studies suggesting that '...…”

Propuestas de intervención ante las conductas disruptivas en la educación secundaria obligatoria//Proposals of intervention by the disruptive behavior in compulsory secondary school

“…Como apuntan diferentes autores (Calvo, 2003;Uruñuela, 2012;Sullivan, Johnson, Owens, & Conway, 2014), los problemas de conducta en el aula, problemas que condicionan la vida interna en las escuelas, son la manifestación de los problemas propiamente sociales (Brown & Munn, 2008. Por lo tanto, será preciso tener en cuenta esta variable o constante social a la hora de entender la CD.…”