ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses an ecosystemic approach to classroom behaviour problems and identifies the potential value of such an approach to teachers and schools. From an ecosystemic viewpoint, human behaviour is the product of ongoing interaction between environmental influences and internal motivations which derive from prior experience. In Britain, Dowling and Osborne have developed what they describe as a 'joint-systems' approach to a wider consideration of the school ecosystem, seeing the school as an important influence on the pupils' behaviour. In America, Molnar and Lindquist have described a school-focused approach which involves classroom teachers and other school personnel using systemic techniques in the normal course of their work. An ecosystemic approach seeks to define behaviour problems in schools in terms of the interactional systems which maintain and promote behaviour. The ecosystemic approach offers a mechanism for analysing and changing interactional patterns that can be employed by individuals at the dyadic level as well as at larger institutional levels.