Gillian Grassie McCluskey

Take More time to Actually Listen: Students' Reflections on Participation and Negotiation in School.

Behaviour in schools is an emotive topic and one of enduring political interest and sensitivity. The media often portrays schools as violent and dangerous places and young people as ever more unruly. This paper explores findings from a recent large-scale national study on behaviour and focuses on the data from primary and secondary school students within this study. The comments and suggestions offered by students move beyond a discussion of behaviour to focus on the broader questions of participation, engagement and meanings of active citizenship in school.

Teachers are Afraid we are Stealing their Strength’: A Risk Society and Restorative Approaches in School

Abstract This paper will discuss the introduction of Restorative Approaches (RA) in schools, contextualising this within a discussion of international concerns about school safety, (in)discipline and school violence. It will explore questions about the compatibility of RA with zero tolerance and positive/assertive discipline approaches and the use of disciplinary exclusion in a ‘risk society’.

Generating an inclusive ethos? Exploring the impact of restorative practices in Scottish schools

In 2004, the Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED) established a project to pilot restorative practices (RPs) in schools in three local authorities (LAs) in Scotland. The pilot project was one strand of the Scottish Executives range of initiatives to promote Better Behaviour Better Learning in Scottish schools and was to run from 2004 to 2006. In parallel with the pilot project, SEED commissioned a team from the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow to evaluate the initiative. That evaluation was collaborative and flexible and took account of differences between the eighteen pilot schools and also of the varying aims schools had in implementing RPs. This paper will draw on data emerging from the evaluation to compare and contrast the experiences of schools as they tried to work in ways which were more restorative and less punitive. The first part of this paper will define RPs and will discuss the nature and distinctiveness of these approaches as they have been used in different settings. The paper will then examine RPs in relation to the experience of schools in the Scottish pilot. Did successful implementation depend upon the existing ethos of the school? Or were RPs themselves a vehicle by which schools could develop a more positive ethos? Three case studies in implementing RPs will be offered. These will be used to exemplify how some schools • changed their practices as a result of implementing RPs • incorporated RPs into existing practices • did not change at all These varying experiences of the case study schools will be used to probe notions of restorative and retributive approaches in relation to school ethos. Finally, the paper will explore the capacity of RPs to transform school ethos and, in general, will consider the conditions necessary for this to happen.

Parents of excluded pupils: customers, partners, problems?

This article presents data drawn from interviews with a range of service providers and with the parents of pupils permanently excluded from alternative provision in England. The findings are considered in the context of recent policy developments in the area of children and families. These include the neo-liberal framing of parents as customers who are able and expected to exercise choice in respect of their childrens education. We explore this notion with reference to situations in which parents were confronted with very limited options. The interviews with service providers illustrate the complex and contingent nature of their relations with the parents, as well as fundamental inconsistencies in the way the latter were regarded. It appeared that service providers perceptions were partly shaped by the degree to which parents appeared to comply with their suggestions, and by the level of resources (financial, personal and social) parents had at their disposal. However, whether parents were perceived as customers, partners or problems seemed largely contingent. The authors conclude that it is in the complexities of the inter-relationships between service providers and parents that the fault-lines of some of the key tenets of contemporary social policy are revealed.

Collaborative evaluation: balancing rigour and relevance in a research study of restorative approaches in schools in Scotland

Restorative Practices (RPs) in schools developed out of growing interest in Restorative Justice in the community. Schools looking for strategies to address disaffection, behaviour difficulties and violence were attracted by the key ideas: the need to restore good relationships when there has been conflict or harm; and develop a school ethos, policies and procedures that reduce the possibilities of such conflict and harm. In 2004, the Scottish Executive funded a pilot project on RPs in three Councils, commissioning a team based at Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities to carry out a two‐year evaluation in 18 pilot schools. The methods were negotiated throughout the research period with a range of stakeholders, including the funders, the Councils and key school personnel. This article will focus on some methodological questions arising from the evaluation, and on the issue of the relationship of the research to policy and practice development. The approach is seen to offer a useful model for the development and evaluation of educational practice and policy when applied with appropriate concern for the balance of methodological rigour with relevance and responsiveness to practice.

A comparison of staff perceptions of behaviour in Scottish schools in 2009 and 2006

Behaviour in schools is an enduring public policy concern not only within the UK, but internationally also. Current concern should come as no surprise as behaviour is intimately connected with policy priorities for schools, namely raising standards of attainment and promoting social cohesion. Clearly, standards are threatened where disruptive behaviour takes place and teacher time is spent on maintaining an orderly classroom rather than on the formal curriculum. This article reports findings from two major surveys of perceptions of behaviour commissioned by the Scottish Government. It locates the work in the Scottish policy context and describes the contextual framework used to guide the collection and analysis of data. It highlights a positive move in perceptions particularly amongst secondary school teachers and suggests why this may be so.

Religious Education in Primary Schools in Scotland: Consensus or Uneasy Truce?

Aspects of identity based on religion and belief have increasingly come to be recognized as major forces driving social action. In the light of ethnic and religious tensions in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, questions have been raised about whether there has been too much emphasis on the diversity of social groups, including those based on religious identity, and too little emphasis on the building of shared values and social cohesion (Levey and Modood, 2009; Weatherell, 2009). This research considers the role of schools in multicultural societies, in particular in relation to their teaching of religious and moral education (RME). Current experiences of religious education in Scottish schools are located within a broad historical context. As a result of the sixteenth century Reformation in Scotland, there was a radical break with the established Catholic tradition, leading to the domination of a form of Protestantism imbued with a strong streak of Puritanism. Immigration from Ireland, which took place throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, led to the establishment of strong Catholic communities in the industrial heartlands of the west of Scotland. Catholic schools were established to meet the needs of these new immigrants. In the 1970s and 1980s, the collapse of traditional industries, such as shipbuilding and coalmining, had a major impact on all communities in the west of Scotland, irrespective of their religious identification.