ABSTRACT
Education systems across the world are facing the common challenge of finding ways to provide for the diversity of their student populations. Over the years in many countries there has been a variety of provision for students who display ‘difficult’, ‘disturbed’ or ‘disruptive’ behaviour. Since the beginning of formal schooling, historically, the response to behaviour judged as challenging to the social order in schools has been to assume that the problem lies with the individual young person and to resort to medical and/or psychological approaches to assessment and ‘treatment’ outside the mainstream educational context.
