‘Inclusion’ Through Exclusion: A Critical Account of New Behaviour Management Practices in Schools

Discipline in the classroom is a perennially hot topic generating much anxiety and disapprobation. This issue has featured prominently in UK policy making in recent years and reflects a broader contemporary preoccupation with the concept of anti-social behaviour. Despite a national analysis of classroom conduct concluding that pupil behaviour remains satisfactory or better in the majority of schools (Steer, 2008), concerns are regularly stoked by high profile media stories of unruly pupils disrespecting authority, intimidating teachers and undermining the potential for willing students to learn. Anxiety over this perceived decline in classroom standards has been met with a range of high profile interventions from central government designed to strengthen the exercise of discipline in schools, giving teachers greater power to search, detain, physically restrain and exclude challenging pupils (Department for Education (DfE), 2010). Such measures also resonate with parallel concerns to raise academic standards, which have played out through an emphasis on attainment scores, exam results and school league tables