Background: Few studies have considered policies which underpin the promotion of positive behaviour support (PBS). The present study examined policy beliefs about PBS and their relationship to restrictive practices. Methods: Discourse network analysis (a combination of critical discourse analysis and social network analysis) was used. Results: A…

Policies exist to regulate the use of restraint and seclusion so that they are only implemented when necessary and following appropriate standards and procedures. These policies often focus on students with disability. This qualitative study explored school leaders' understanding, use and perspectives of the Restraint and Seclusion Policy mandated…

To understand patterns of co-option and tension between discourses of creativity on the one hand, and discourses of school management and administration on the other, it is important to bring these discourses into contact with each other. This paper considers ideas of risk-taking, autonomy, novelty and flexibility, all of which are frequently…

We examine how students' perspectives of their learning environments vary between private and public schools in Australia. Previous research has shown that educational outcomes do not vary by school sector in most countries after controlling for student social background. Little is known, however, about the ways in which different students'…

This paper studies the impact of compulsory schooling on violent behaviour and victimization in school using individual-level administrative data matching education and criminal records from Queensland (Australia). Exploiting a legislative increase in the minimum dropout age in 2006, this study defines a series of regression-discontinuity…

Psychometric properties of the 30-item Family Resource Scale (FRS) were examined in a sample of families seeking assistance for their child's behavioral difficulties (N = 300). The FRS is a measure that assesses the adequacy of family resources across several contexts including intra-family support and personal resources. Our analyses supported a…

Australia and New Zealand have participated in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment since 2000. Reading literacy was the main focus of the Programme for International Student Assessment in 2000, and at that time both countries' students generally performed well above the…

This study uses data from the Programme for International Student Assessment, a large and nationally representative dataset, to examine how learning environments vary across metropolitan, rural and regional schools in Australia. Research has shown that school climate and learning environments are related to student academic performance, but little…

Schools worldwide are increasingly enmeshed in discourses of securitisation. Efforts to prevent or counter violent extremism (P/CVE) are a manifestation of this. P/CVE in education takes various forms; the pilot explored here is considered super-soft in that no mention was made of violent extremism. Attention was given to schools' capacities to…

Migration flows are profoundly changing the composition of classrooms. Results from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) reveal that in 2015, almost one in four 15-year-old students in OECD countries reported that they were either foreign-born or had at least one foreign-born parent. Between 2003 and 2015, the share of…

PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) was inaugurated in 2001 as a follow-up to International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's 1991 Reading Literacy Study. Conducted every five years, PIRLS assesses the reading achievement of young students in their fourth year of schooling--an important transition…

This paper reports on a study that investigated the extent to which student behaviour is a concern for school teachers. A questionnaire was used to investigate teachers' views about student behaviour in their classes. The results suggest that low-level disruptive and disengaged student behaviours occur frequently and teachers find them difficult…

This article critiques guidance approaches to discipline, that are employed in early childhood environments with an aim to create democratic environments for children, and as part of "good" practices. Advocates of guidance claim that this is a more humane or democratic approach to discipline that empowers children, and therefore, power…

Student misbehaviour can provoke aggressive teacher management (e.g. yelling in anger), adversely effecting students' learning and attitudes toward school. To investigate this phenomenon, data were obtained from 75 Chinese (typically Eastern) and 192 Victorian (typically Western) secondary teachers who self-reported aggressive management. Results:…

Quiet students are a feature of the organisation of secondary schools. Using qualitative methods and Deleuzean conceptualisations of modern subjectivity, this paper explores the ways that quiet students negotiate the terrain of their school. These negotiations often seem to produce a self that is trapped rather than a subject who seizes…