Collaborative problem solving (CPS) och elever som utmanar med sitt beteende utifrån perspektiv från specialpedagogisk diskurs

This study aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the CPS model in the perspectives of special education discourse.The purpose of this study is to analyze how Ross Greenes way of describing students with challenging behavior in the CPS-model are interpreted by special education teachers and correlated with special education discourse. The studies questions are:•How does Ross Greene describe students with challenging behavior in the CPS-model?•How do special education teachers interpret these descriptions?•How do these descriptions correlative with perspectives of special education discourse?This study uses discourse theory as a framework, and Faircluoghs (1992, 2001) model which highlights how text, discursive practice and social practice altogether create social change as the method for the discourse analysis. Four special education teachers were interviewed and the ALSUP guide (Assessment of lagging skills and unsolved problems) and the Plan B Cheat Sheet, both important texts in the CPS model, were used for the discourse analysis.This study concludes that the categorical medical discourse is salient in CPS. It seems as this way of describing students with challenging behavior in the model has made a great impact on the special education teacher way of talking about the students. The pathogenic perspective dominates the discussions around the ALSUP-guide and the informants talk more about how to deal with students challenging behavior and solving their problems, than how to create a school organized for meeting all students learning needs by supporting teachers in their daily educational work. This creates dilemmas. The categorical way of describing the students seem to challenge teacher’s authoritarian way of describing students though, and that is considered by the informants in this study as a good thing. Plan B is a humanistic way of talking to students with challenging behavior and addresses both teachers and students concerns. It makes the special education teachers talk about students with challenging behavior from a relational perspective.The study implies that special education teachers need to be critical to the way they use models based on the medical discourse, so that their working practice includes both students, teachers and the school as a system with its norms and values