“Trouble” with School Behavior and Discipline Policies in Neoliberal Times

Neoliberalism, after decades of reform, continues to steer educational policies around the world. As private enterprise encroaches public education, schools are held accountable, tangled up in an internationally competitive culture of achieving benchmarks that meet technically managed standards. Not only is it academic performance that is audited but also codes of behavioral conduct.

As behaviour remains one of the most dominant discourses of schooling, it is discipline policies that are critiqued in this book, framed by tracing genealogical, historical, and political patterns of discipline practices in schooling from 16^th century Europe through to 21^st century Australia. Two in-depth, ethnographic case studies conducted in Western Australia (when the author was both teacher and researcher), are shared as theoretical tools to provide insights into how behavior management and discipline policies are enacted within the field of institutional secondary schooling.

As an alternative to the "Neoliberal" School, it is instead the voices, interpretations, and experiences of young people themselves, together with the voice of the author as narrator and theory-maker that speak back to neoliberal behaviour and discipline policies. These voices provide hope and a vision to reimagine educational narratives and pedagogical directions that are more inclusive, democratic and sustainable into the future.

Janean Robinson PhD, is an Adjunct Research Fellow with the University of South Australia and member of the Centre for Research in Educational and Social Inclusion (CRESI). Prior to this, Janean was lecturer, tutor, and researcher at Murdoch University (2007-2022) and secondary school teacher in government schools throughout Western Australia (1978-2006). Janean was Assistant to the Editors (Steinberg & Down) of The SAGE Handbook of Critical Pedagogies (2020) and lead author with Barry Down and John Smyth of the chapter Student voices ‘echo’ from the ethnographic field in the edited collection; Leaving the field: Methodological insights from ethnographic exits (Smith & Delamont, 2023).

Janean has always advocated for social justice and her activist research work is centred on sharing the narrative voices of teachers and students. These voices are too often silenced; her research provides precious spaces and places for those voices to "speak back" to the reforms in education policy and practices that marginalize them. Janean is not only passionate about education but also in protecting the natural environments upon which all living things depend.