ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an introduction to some ways in which systems theory can offer an approach to understanding behaviour problems in schools. The biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy is usually acknowledged as being the first to use the term 'general systems theory' and to set out an original set of basic concepts about its application. Systems theory argues that dynamic tension is a potentially positive rather than negative sign, provided that the necessary feedback mechanisms are operating effectively within the system in order to implement a required balancing-out effect. The necessary approach for working within the framework of systems theory is to start from the assumption that schools exist and that children must attend them and will be expected to act in certain ways when they do. The school needs to be seen as an open system in constant dynamic interaction with the environment that it serves, both in regard to the local neighborhood.
