Bullying remains a serious problem in schools in England and internationally despite the plethora of research, interventions and policies which aim to address it. The majority of research and interventions are based on a traditional approach where school bullying is constructed as involving a clear imbalance of power between individuals. Recently,…

Internal isolation has become a mainstay of behaviour management across UK schools. However, despite the extensive use of isolation rooms/booths (IRBs), the supporting evidence-base for such measures remains scant. In contrast, there is growing concern about the impact such punitive spaces have on well-being. This study used the methodological…

Over the past five years, school exclusions have increased in the UK and have become an accepted method of behaviour management. One way of excluding children from mainstream education is through the use of isolation room punishment where children are removed from their classroom and placed in a designated area away from their peers. Isolation…

This book, a follow-up edition to "International Perspectives on Exclusionary Pressures in Education" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), presents an overview of inequality and inequity along different dimensions of exclusionary practices in schools and other educational settings. Contributions provide a range of theoretical perspectives which…

Background: Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are related to low achievement but not to deficits in verbal ability, commonly regarded as a major risk factor for poor academic outcomes in antisocial youth. This suggests that CU traits may have utility in explaining heterogeneous risk pathways for poor school performance in antisocial children.…

The study presents data drawn from semi-structured interviews with five young people permanently excluded from schools in North East England. The research aimed to investigate the risk factors that lead to the children using illegal drugs, to determine the drivers and implications for drug misuse and the carrying of knives into school. The…

Aims: Maintaining order is a fundamental task for teachers in the classroom. Historically, some form of punishment has been the common response to undesirable behaviour. However, over the past two and a half decades, a different approach to classroom management, sometimes labelled 'positive discipline', is being increasingly adopted by schools.…

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the limitations imposed by the restrictive payment-by-results curriculum were gradually relaxed, and many members of Her Majesty's Inspectorate were able to welcome the opportunity to focus their efforts upon supporting schools, teachers, and even individual pupils. This article looks at the work of…

Education is usually considered a force for good, associated with hope and optimism about better individual and social futures. Yet a case can be made that education and education policy in recent decades, far from being a force for good, has had nefarious effects at multiple levels. This can be seen in the growing alienation of significant…

Children with Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties have been shown to constitute a unique class of Special Educational Need, where their 'challenging' behaviour can often result in a disproportionately punitive response, rather than one characterised by a needs-based understanding of behaviour as communication. Such an understanding…

This paper explores the perceptions of professionals working with young people who are NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) about their role in young people's trajectories. The issue of professionally and educationally inactive young people is a growing concern in Western economies and has been at the forefront of government agendas for…

In England, alternative education (AE) is offered to young people formally excluded from school, close to formal exclusion or who have been informally pushed to the educational edges of their local school. Their behaviour is seen as needing to change. In this paper, we examine the behavioural regimes at work in 11 AE programmes. Contrary to…

In schools, the notion of "care" is often synonymous with welfare and disciplinary regimes. Drawing on Foucault, and a study of alternative education (AE) across the UK, and looking in depth at two cases of complementary AE, we identify three types of disciplinary regimes at work in schools: (1) dominant performative reward and…

This article explores the concept of fear related to the authoritarian classroom and how children express its influence on their learning. Its investigations draw on the comments of four classes of primary-age pupils, two from a school near London, England, and two from boys' and girls' schools in the West Bank, Palestine. It is written by one…

This narrative account describes approaches to sanctions in primary school settings that also provide nurture groups, and the ways in which different approaches may be viewed as helpful or harmful to children's behaviour and to nurture group provision. It draws from research conducted as part of a larger comparative nurture group study examining…