‘We’re not trying to turn them into middle-class Guardian readers’: constructing the offender in the probation ‘classroom’

Over the past 10 years, cognitive-behavioural programmes have come to be seen as a standard form of rehabilitation for offenders in the United Kingdom. However, the majority of research has tended to evaluate the programmes purely within the evidence-based context of the ‘What Works’ criminal justice agenda. By placing the programmes within their social and political context, this article suggests that they function as neo-liberal regimes of governance that aim to ‘responsibilise’ offenders. Through an analysis of interviews with probation practitioners, the article explores how ‘othering’ discourses relating to offenders intersected with gendered, classed and ‘raced’ social identities. Consequently, young white, working-class masculinities were constructed within this educational environment as impulsive, irresponsible and ‘cognitively deficient’. Thus, the article calls for a discursive shift away from cognitive-behavioural rehabilitation techniques and towards more genuinely inclusive, socially just, and holistic educational programmes for probationers.     

Cognitive-behavioural Approaches for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Teacher Survey

This study provided an investigation of the knowledge, implementation and perspectives of Australian teachers of students with autism spectrum disorder regarding cognitive-behavioural approaches, using an anonymous survey. The sample of 270 New South Wales teachers reported a reasonable level of knowledge and implementation of strategies commonly employed in interventions using cognitive behavioural approaches. A modest difference was found in the knowledge and implementation of surveyed strategies between teachers with and without formal qualifications in special education. Incongruent with research evidence, the respondents perceived that cognitive-behavioural approaches were suitable for students from a very young age and with cognitive levels from typical intellectual ability to moderate intellectual disability. The respondents also used the surveyed strategies for various purposes over and beyond those reported typically in the research literature. Directions for future research are suggested.