ABSTRACT
Historically the response to students whose behaviour is perceived as threatening to the social order in schools has been to assume a deficit model of the individual and use medical and/or psychological approaches to assessment to justify the provision of some sort of ‘treatment’ out of the mainstream educational context. The law continues to support a notion of the learner as passive and of behaviour that is difficult to manage as simply an attribute of the individual student. In this chapter we argue that current moves towards inclusive approaches for all students of statutory school age requires a re-conceptualisation of the learner as active agent in his/her own learning, and of both learning and behaviour as situated, dynamic and interactive between students and the learning environment. It also requires a conceptualisation of the learning environment as needing to adapt to the needs of students if they are to become active participants in schools’ communities of learners (Lave and Wenger, 1991; 1999). If this is to occur, teachers need to be able to reflect critically on notions of ‘behaviour difficulties’, inclusion and the values associated with them. Consequently, emphasis in teacher professional development should be given to reflective practice (Schön, 1983; 1987) no less than to training in competencies and the ‘tools’ of the trade.
