Derrington 2012 thesis.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

2.2.1 Literature on adolescents and challenging behaviour
Difficult behaviours can arise when students’ stress and emotional difficulties are not
managed which can also have an impact on teachers and other pupils in schools.
There is a considerable amount of literature concerning how schools can, or should,
respond to challenging behaviour at school. This includes how a school deals with
disaffection (Pickles, 1992; Boucher 1999; Newburn, Shiner and Young, 2005), with
children in trouble (Hayden, 2007) and the consequences of disruptive behaviour
(Bowen, Jenson and Clark, 2004; Rogers, 2005; Cole, 1998). There are positive
behavioural support programmes for students with emotional and behavioural
difficulties (Cole, Visser and Upton, 1998; Boucher 1999) and approaches to how
poor behaviours and attendance can be managed and improved (Hallam and Rogers,
2008).
Challenging behaviour is most common among students with emotional and social
difficulties and the literature on this subject tends to emphasise the need for early
interventions and establishing frameworks of support in the childrens’ early years
(Kay, 2007). In the UK, the earliest formal efforts to cater for pupils with behavioural
problems required their removal from mainstream education into residential
establishments (Bridgeland, 1971). However this is now seen as a last resort (Cole,
1986). Students are increasingly offered more options, such as support from a Pupil
Referral Unit (1.3), where an individual approach can be taken to meet a pupil’s
needs (Daniels et al., 1998; Cole, Daniels and Visser, 2001). In the UK there is a
contradiction between the requirement to attend school, with parents ultimately liable
to being prosecuted and fined, and the ability of schools to exclude pupils (Cole,
Daniels and Visser, 2001). The scale of the problem was monitored in the 1990s, at
the same time that Social Inclusion Centres were introduced.
Exclusion is not a new phenomenon. It was previously known as expulsion, as set out
in the 1944 Education Act 9 . However, it is now understood from research that there is
a connection between exclusion from school and children living in families with other
difficulties. This was addressed by several government initiatives and culminated in
1998/9 with the white paper ‘Learning to Succeed’ which announced the Connexions
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* !This Act was repealed in 1996 and there are no known outstanding effects from it. !
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