ABSTRACT
A meeting room with a seated semicircle of seven primary school principals, four female, three male. An experienced principal who moved from one side of town to the other told that she had suspended two children during all of 1998. All schools work within a State-wide Student Behaviour Management Policy which details responsibilities and rights of schools, students and parents, and provides standardised prescribed codes and forms of punishment. The disciplinary routines that are established in State schools typically consist of a set of overall school rules, with classroom rules and ‘consequences’ established by classroom teachers. Many are physically present and mentally absent, but the more energetically resistant typically attend only those few classes they enjoy, truant and openly challenge some of their teachers. Most rustbelt schools know only too well the feeling that they are under siege from young people on the loose in the neighbourhood, and they struggle to find ways of responding.
