ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a critical overview of recent Australian state and territory education department policy developments concerning school discipline over the past twenty years. It focuses on the intent, stated and actual, and effect of policy rather than exhaustive description. The chapter analysis the policy process and impact of policy developments. It traces the parameters of the policy agenda and reflects the complexity as that agenda unfolds. The chapter builds central contention that, notwithstanding adjustments to language and practices in school discipline, the underlying aims of surveillance, containment and control endure. It considers the dynamics and outcomes of policy-making in the area of school discipline from a range of vantage points. A review of aspects of various state policy developments over the past twenty years reveals gaps and silences in the discourse of discipline policies.
