Disciplinary exclusion: wicked problems in wicked settings

This paper uses Rittel and Webber’s categorisation of wicked problems in order to interrupt discourses around school behaviour. Each of the 10 characteristics suggested by Rittel and Webber are examined using the English education system as a vehicle by which to consider and interrogate their complexity. This endeavour is crucial as although the characteristics of wicked problems naturally overlap, the cannot, and should not, be conflated if we wish to understand how different facets of a wicked problem shed light, and create shadows, that impact on all members of a school community. That school communities can be wicked settings adds nuance to the complexity of the problems that we face when educating students whose behaviours challenge the norms of their educational environment.     

Addressing the wicked problem of quality in higher education: theoretical approaches and implications

This article explores the wicked problem of quality in higher education, arguing for a more robust theorising of the subject at national, institutional and local department level. The focus of the discussion rests on principles for theorising in more rigorous ways about the multidimensional issue of quality. Quality in higher education is proposed as a wicked, ill-defined problem that is under-theorised yet associated with high stakes policy-making and funding, particularly at the macro national level. Theoretical frameworks informing the quality debate in higher education are explored before proposing four sensitising concepts as potential vehicles for enhancing theory-building around quality in higher education. The article concludes by considering practical implications for governments, universities and departments grappling with the complex suite of problems associated with defining, theorising, measuring and demonstrating quality in higher education.     

Exclusion of Travellers in state schools

Travellers in Scotland and the rest of the UK are often still mobile. In particular, the showground and circus communities remain highly mobile for much of the year. The overt stereotyping, discrimination and racial prejudice faced mostly by Gypsies and Travellers is said to keep them out of schools and certainly has contributed to low attendance levels and even non-attendance and dropout before the due leaving date. The research carried out in Scotland over a six-year period included both quantitative and qualitative methods, targeted schools, local authorities and a range of Travellers representing different groups, life-styles and generations. The reality of disrupted learning for schools and for Travellers is revealed. For thosewho do access schools and attend regularly there are still many covert barriers to successful learning. Such institutional discrimination has not previously been researched and is hardly acknowledged, yet makes a significant contribution to Travellers' success or failure in school. The mismatch between these pupils' particular learning needs and the provision made for a settled, local community offers a paradigm for many other interrupted learners: reduced selfesteem, demotivation, disaffection and eventual dropout for some.The essentially excluding school system and the self-excluding Traveller pupil (parental condoned absence) conspire to perpetuate cycles of underachievement and marginalization, confirming their social exclusion within society. Yet, at a grass roots level, innovative projects and approaches are being developed on an ad hoc basis. At the European level, particular emphasis is put on the need for open and Distance Learning to support Travellers. The lack of state funded-support for out of school learning does little to engage Travellers with learning. The findings are described and analysed within the broader framework of the literature and practices in this area in Europe and Australia.     

The problem of bullying in schools and the promise of positive behaviour supports

Bullying in schools is recognised as a global problem. In the USA, school shootings and increasing school aggression focused research on the causes of bullying and interventions that could reduce or eliminate bullying behaviours. A variety of bullying programs have generated mixed results with some actually increasing bullying behaviours. There are consistent limitations on the research, including problems of definition, scope, generalisability, complexity and philosophy and model, but slowly, consensus on these issues is being reached. Positive behaviour supports (PBIS) in schools provides a framework for comprehensive behavioural management. PBIS is being implemented across the USA as part of a national response to intervention (RTI) model. PBIS might offer an opportunity to address some of these persistent problems and to avoid others altogether. This literature review considers the nature of the problems limiting success of bullying prevention programs and will offer recommendations for potential solutions within a PBIS framework.     

贵州师范学院2010级学生心理健康现状调查

针对贵州师范学院2010级学生进行心理测试,3274名大学生测查出1141人有不同程度的心理问题（34．85％）。各因子阳．性检出率从高到低排序依次为强迫（56．65％）、适应（54．28％）、情绪稳定（50．92％）、焦虑（50．82％）、学习压力（49．29％）、抑郁（39．40％）、人际交往（39．19％）、偏执（30．64％）、敌对（22．24％）、心理平衡（21．13％）。心理健康状况不容乐观,应及时地开展心理健康教育和心理咨询。     

Understanding the causes and management of problem behaviour in Zimbabwean schools: teacher perceptions

Problem behaviour continues to present a challenge for school-teachers worldwide. Since school-teachers around the globe have different conceptualisations of what constitutes problem behaviour, the purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of Zimbabwean school-teachers about their perceived causes of problem behaviour among students in school, and how they usually deal with the problem behaviours. A Problem Behaviour Survey developed specifically for this study was administered to a convenience sample of 62 teachers enrolled in a part-time postgraduate diploma at a local university in Zimbabwe. Participants identified bullying, fighting, violence, fighting, truancy, drug/alcohol abuse and sexual immorality as the most prevalent problem behaviours in their schools. Results of this study also demonstrated that few teachers thought that physical punishment was an effective way to manage problem behaviour and that school-teachers should be allowed to use it. These findings were important in helping school-teachers and administrators to develop a better understanding of problem behaviour in their schools as a pre-requisite to the development of more effective behaviour management practices.     

Cognitive style and behaviour in secondary school pupils in Kuwait

The behaviours of 207 (92 male and 115 female) 15-18-year-old Kuwaiti secondary school pupils were assessed, together with a rating of their home educational background and cognitive style. The teachers of Arabic and of mathematics independently rated the behaviour of their pupils on a 31-item pupil behaviour questionnaire, and home educational background was rated by the Social Officer in each school. The position of pupils on the Wholist-Analytic and Verbal-Imagery dimensions of cognitive style was assessed by means of the Arabic version of the computer-presented Cognitive Styles Analysis . A factor analysis of the questionnaire items indicated four factors: conduct behaviour, learning behaviour, stability and physical well-being. With conduct and learning behaviour, the overall level was higher for females than males and also improved as parents' educational level increased. While conduct behaviour did not vary much with style, learning behaviour was significantly lower for the Analytics than the Wholists, and for the Imagers than the Verbalizers. For stability and physical well-being, there was a significant interaction between the educational level of parents and style in their effect on overall rating, with the greatest style effect when the parental educational level was low. The results are discussed in terms of their practical implications and the nature of the educational system within Kuwait.     

Examining the effect of positive behaviour support on academic achievement of students with disabilities

Students who engage in challenging behaviour compromise the fundamental ability of schools to educate children. Consequently, teachers face the daunting task of designing effective strategies to promote positive educational outcomes for their students. Since the 1997 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act amendments, the use of positive behaviour supports (PBS) to address the behavioural needs of children challenged by disabilities has expanded. There is evidence to support the utility of PBS in reducing challenging behaviour among students. However, successful schools are also gauged by the academic achievement of their students. Hence, it is important to examine the extent to which behavioural outcomes are related to academic outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which PBS interventions aimed at reducing challenging behaviour result in corresponding improvement in academic achievement. A meta‐analysis of extant research indicated a positive correlation of 0.40 between improvement in problem behaviour and academic achievement. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: http://youtu.be/c9OUU0GkGrw .     

The relative impact of school‐wide positive behavior support on teachers’ perceptions of student behavior across schools,teachers, and students

School‐wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) is a systemic approach for implementing a proactive schoolwide discipline and for improving students’ academic and behavioral outcomes by targeting the school’s organizational and social culture. With a multilevel approach, the present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of SWPBS on teachers’ perceptions of the student behavior (N = 3,295) across schools, teachers, and children using a multilevel approach. We assessed teacher perception of student problem behavior five times during a 3‐year implementation of SWPBS in 23 Dutch schools. Multilevel analyses not only revealed a small increase in perceived prosocial behavior and a small decrease in problems with peers, but also different effects across children, teachers, and schools. Effects were stronger for girls and for students with higher severity of perceived problems at baseline. At teachers’ level, higher mean baseline severity of perceived problems was associated with the reduced impact of SWPBS on perceived emotional problems and problems with peers. At the school level, effects were stronger for regular schools as compared with special needs schools.     

The reliability and validity of the pupil behaviour questionnaire: a child classroom behaviour assessment tool

ABSTRACT

This paper assesses the reliability and validity of the teacher-completed Pupil Behaviour Questionnaire (PBQ), by comparing it to the already extensively validated teacher-completed Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Participants included 2074 primary school children participating in a universal school-based trial and 41 vulnerable children who were taking part in a study exploring the impact of exclusion from school. Exploratory factor analysis results (first factor accounts for 80.8% of the variation in the items) and the high Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.85 indicate that the PBQ consists of one substantive factor/dimension. Strong correlations between the total PBQ score and the conduct sub-scale (Spearman’s correlation coefficient (r_s) = 0.67) and total difficulties score (r_s = 0.59) of the SDQ indicate convergent validity. This study suggests that the PBQ is a reliable measure, and provides some evidence of validity. Further work is needed to test the PBQ in an older, more diverse populations and to measure sensitivity to change.     

如何对智力障碍学生进行健康教育

"人人为健康,健康为人人",健康影响着整个人群,家庭和社会,对于智力障碍者来说健康教育的开展更是其教育、康复的一种形式,特别是心理健康教育和性健康教育.总结国内外经验,健康教育提高了智力障碍学生的健康行为以及其选择健康行为的主动性,提高了智力障碍学生的健康水平等.同时,通过相关的健康促进,借助社会、家庭这一支持系统的力量,使健康教育的效果得到加强.     

人际圈理论在智力落后儿童性心理健康教育中的应用

智力落后儿童由于自身的缺陷,在成长中会遇到很多有关性的问题的困扰,因此性教育应当成为智力落后教育中的重要领域。国外学者所提出的“人际圈理论”对于促进智力落后儿童形成正确的心理-社会性适应能力有着积极的意义。“人际圈理论”按照亲密关系将与个体生活关系不同的人群分别安排在不同距离的同心圆中,并且用不同的颜色代表个体应该采取的合适行为,可以帮助智力落后者直观地习得正确的社会交往行为。     

如何对智力障碍学生进行健康教育

“人人为健康,健康为人人”,健康影响着整个人群,家庭和社会,对于智力障碍者来说健康教育的开展更是其教育、康复的一种形式,特别是心理健康教育和性健康教育。总结国内外经验,健康教育提高了智力障碍学生的健康行为以及其选择健康行为的主动性,提高了智力障碍学生的健康水平等。同时,通过相关的健康促进,借助社会、家庭这一支持系统的力量,使健康教育的效果得到加强。     

The crisis discourse of a wicked policy problem: vocational skills training in Australia

In 2007 the Rudd Labor government in Australia introduced significant changes to education policy for the nation. The Skilling Australia’s Future (Rudd et al. Skilling Australia for the future. Election 2007 policy document, 2007) policy was meant to redress a perceived failure by the previous Howard federal Liberal-National Coalition governments to fund and manage vocational skills training adequately. The Skilling Australia’s Future policy established a number of areas for immediate action. This paper looks at one of these areas from the policy document, namely, the Rudd government’s plan for addressing skills shortages (Rudd et al. 2007, pp. 4–9) through the establishment of Trade Training Centres in schools. The policy is analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis, featuring the semiotic concept of intertextuality. Findings from the application of this method suggest that Skilling Australia’s Future (2007) belongs within a history of like-minded policy and, although a new direction is provided by the allocation of Trade Training Centres to selected high schools, the policy is not clearly separable from the market-driven discourse that has pervaded education policy since the 1990s.     

Addressing trauma in schools: Multitiered service delivery options for practitioners

Hundreds of thousands of children are confronted with traumatic experiences each year in the United States. As trauma‐informed care begins to take hold in schools, school mental health providers (e.g., school psychologists, counselors, and social workers) desire concrete service‐delivery options for students affected by trauma. This article provides examples from the literature via a narrative review of assessment, intervention, and practitioner support options related to childhood trauma. Specific attention is paid to framing concrete school‐based trauma service‐delivery options within a multitiered systems of support model to align with existing school practices. Given the large amount of literature on this topic, this article aims to reduce the barriers practitioners face when looking to implement trauma services in their schools by organizing example practices from the literature in a commonly used service‐delivery framework.     

The problem of distributed leadership in schools

There is a vast and mainly enthusiastic literature on leadership. It has permeated virtually all sectors and the education sector has been particularly affected. The argument of this paper is that most of the literature and discussion about this issue is couched in terms of some fairly simple polarities: managers versus leaders, transactional versus transformational leaders, task‐focused versus people‐focused and so on. Moreover, recent analysis in education has begun to question the predominant focus on the head teacher as the leader but, so far, there has been little empirical work carried out on the meanings and implications of distributed leadership. The research reported here suggests that one crucial issue to be addressed is the dynamic of competition between leaders. Using a new conceptual framework, this article reports on a case study that reveals different interpretations of what leadership should entail and constitute at different levels of the organization. The paper shows that it is by no means enough to proselytize ‘leadership’ as if this will produce a set of approaches and behaviours that will unproblematically transform. On the contrary, different versions of what the transformed situation should look like can cause deep divisions.     

浅析中学教师心理健康问题

教师心理健康状况将直接影响到教师积极性、主动性、创造精神和教学潜能的发挥，进而影响到学生的心理健康，并最终将影响到目前新课改的得与失、成与败。文章试图通过分析中学教师心理健康现状、心理障碍的表现、影响教师心理健康的因素等，提出相应的提高教师心理健康水平对策，以呼唤给予教师更多的心理关怀。     

Evaluating the outcomes and implementation of a TaMHS (Targeting Mental Health in Schools) project in four West Midlands (UK) schools using activity theory

Government guidance in 2008 endorsed the “Targeting Mental Health in Schools” (TaMHS) agenda, which sets out to promote mental health in schools through the delivery of universal and targeted interventions. This paper initially defines mental health and outlines the TaMHS initiative. It then offers empirical findings from four focus groups with schools who took part in the TaMHS initiative in one local authority. Socio-cultural activity theory is used as an analytic framework to explore perceived outcomes of TaMHS, as well as providing insight into the processes of TaMHS implementation. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings are consistent with existing literature and suggest positive outcomes for children, staff and the whole-school system. Implications for the role of educational psychologists in continuing to promote mental health in schools and considerations for effective implementation are discussed.     

合肥848名小学生心理健康状况的调查分析

为调查与分析合肥市小学生心理健康状况，本文采用心理健康诊断测验（MHT）对合肥市某小学1096名7～11岁小学生进行测查。结果表明：（1）小学生心理健康问题总分检出率为3．65％，各分量表阳性总检出率为总人数的62．5％，其中学习焦虑因子检出率为43．3％，各项检出率依次排序为：学习焦虑、过敏倾向、自责倾向、身体症状、对人焦虑、）中动倾向、孤独倾向、恐怖倾向。（2）除恐怖倾向外，其他各因子分男生与女生没有显著性差异。（3）恐怖倾向和冲动倾向与年级的相关达到了非常显著性水平，其中恐怖倾向与年级呈现负相关。学习焦虑、对人焦虑、孤独倾向与年级的相关达到显著性水平，其中孤独倾向与年级呈现负相关。研究得出：合肥市小学生整体心理健康水平较好，但学习焦虑明显，应制定有效的干预措施，加强小学生的心理健康教育。