This qualitative study delves into the perspectives of school leaders in a Canadian province, exploring their views on student suspensions and alternative approaches to school discipline. Amid a provincial advocacy organization's call for a review and reduction of suspensions in that jurisdiction, the study captures both constructive and critical…

This study examined the relationships between implementation of a school-wide approach to behavior, School-wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS), and teacher self-efficacy. Twenty-two teachers from schools implementing SWPBS and 40 teachers from schools not implementing SWPBS completed a questionnaire measuring aspects of self-efficacy.…

Since 2003, Ontario, Canada's high school graduation rates have increased 13% while suspensions and expulsion rates have simultaneously decreased. This article examines relationships between the province's safe school policy and Student Success/Learning to 18 (SS/L18), a policy designed to increase graduation rates. Analyses of teachers'…

While it is generally agreed that students responsible for misbehavior should be held accountable, the meaning of accountability and how it might best be achieved appear to remain ill-defined. In this article, we propose that accountability can be operationalized as a fourfold process. Based on related literature, experience, and empirical…

A study of junior high schools (MacDonald 1995) found that students and administrators held significantly different perceptions regarding the nature, extent, and management of violent behaviors. This paper presents findings of a study conducted 1 year later that more thoroughly examined students' perceptions of the effectiveness of current school…

This paper introduces a project that sought to examines students' perceptions of the meaning of school violence, its impact on their schooling experience, and the effectiveness of current strategies for dealing with violent behaviors. Interviews were conducted with 60 students in grades 7-9 (in groups of 12) drawn from 5 K-9 schools in central…

Practices exist in Nunavut schools that were reported by "Qallunaat" (non-Inuit) teachers in Berger's (2001) study to "work," but that seem to be against historical Inuit culture. In this paper we discuss dangers in using such practices in schools that already erode Inuit culture, and also reasons to consider their use, then…

This paper explores spatial theory, and particularly a Foucauldian analysis of space, power, and the subject, as a frame within which to examine moves toward security in North American urban schools. We bring into play empirical data from an ethnographic study of New York City and Toronto schools where policies and technologies of record-keeping,…