Abstract
Research indicates that enrolments in separate special educational settings for students with disruptive behaviour have increased in a number of educational jurisdictions internationally. Recent analysis of school enrolment data has identified a similar increase in the New South Wales (NSW) government school sector; however, questions have been raised as to their use and effectiveness. To situate the NSW experiment with behaviour schools in a broader context, the paper begins with a review of the international research literature. This is followed by a discussion of the NSW experience with the aim of identifying parallels and gaps in the research. The paper concludes by outlining important questions and directions for research to better understand and improve the educational experiences and outcomes of disruptive disaffected students in Australia’s largest school system.
Highlights
Despite the move towards the inclusion of students with special educational needs more generally (Slee, 2010), the exclusion of students categorised as emotionally or behaviourally disordered continues to increase (Bradley, Doolittle & Bartolotta, 2008; Jull, 2008; Graham, Sweller & Van Bergen, 2010)
Similar indications can be found in surveys of young people in New South Wales (NSW) juvenile detention centres which have found that 40% of inmates spent considerable time in special schools and support classes prior to being incarcerated (NSW Department of Juvenile Justice, 2003). These findings suggest that there is a parallel between the NSW experience with separate settings for students with disruptive behaviour and those noted internationally, but that the ‘remove, return, rehabilitate’ model on which they were first developed is failing
Directions for future research While NSW behaviour schools were initially established as a short-term intervention model (Conway, 2006), it is not yet understood whether the lack of students returning to mainstream schooling is due to a failure in the ability of behaviour schools to effectively rehabilitate disaffected students or the resistance of home schools to allow and support students’ return – or a combination of both
Summary
Despite the move towards the inclusion of students with special educational needs more generally (Slee, 2010), the exclusion of students categorised as emotionally or behaviourally disordered continues to increase (Bradley, Doolittle & Bartolotta, 2008; Jull, 2008; Graham, Sweller & Van Bergen, 2010). Recent analysis of government school enrolment trends suggests that rather than returning to mainstream schools, students with disruptive behaviour may be graduating from less to more restrictive settings; e.g., from mainstream schools to separate support classes in early primary, to behaviour schools in the middle years, to special school provision within juvenile detention centres in the early to middle years of secondary school (Graham, Sweller & Van Bergen, 2010).
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