Building Community to Create Equitable, Inclusive and Compassionate Schools through Relational Approaches: (Routledge Research in Special Educational Needs)

This book draws on an extensive international literature and policy context, from a wide range of fields of enquiry, to challenge the orthodoxies and systemic issues that serve to marginalise children and young people and lead the way for schools to become more equitable, inclusive and compassionate in their practice.

With a particular focus on children with social, emotional and behavioural/mental health needs, it critiques policy and practice as they pertain to behaviour management and school discipline in the UK and the USA, and offers alternative perspectives based on collaborative and relational approaches to promoting positive behaviour and building community. Each chapter features reflection points to provoke discussion as well as offering additional suggested reading, culminating in a discussion of the role of school leaders in leading for social justice.

Ultimately, this book will be of benefit to scholars, researchers and students working in the fields of behaviour management, inclusion and special needs education, and education, policy and politics more broadly. It will also offer substantial appeal to education professionals, school leaders and those with a locus on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people.

Introduction: Making a Difference to the Lives of Children and Young People

Part I: Understanding the Drivers for Change within the System: The Policy Context
Chapter 1 Understanding the Policy Context: The Macrosytem
Chapter 2 Inclusive Education: Challenges, Tensions and Dilemmas

Part II: Exploring and Understanding the Problem
Chapter 3 Marginalisation, Social Exclusion and the Impact of Poverty on Children and Young People
Chapter 4 Schools as Places of Belonging or Exclusion: School Disaffection
Chapter 5 Understanding Social, Emotional and Behavioural Needs (SEBN)/Mental Health Needs (SEMHN)
Chapter 6 Looking through the Lens of Developmental Theory to Understand Social, Emotional and Behavioural Needs (SEBN)/Mental Health Needs (SEMHN)

Part III: Towards New Understandings: Challenging Orthodoxies and Building Community through Relational Approaches
Chapter 7 Challenging the Orthodoxies of Behaviour Management through an Examination of Power, Influence and Authority
Chapter 8 Challenging the Orthodoxies of Behaviour Management through a Focus on Policy and Practice
Chapter 9 Building Community through Nurture and Trauma-Informed Practice
Chapter 10 Building Community through Restorative Justice/Practice

Part IV: Empowering the School Community
Chapter 11 Working Collaboratively Together to Empower the School Community through Pupil Participation and Parental Engagement
Chapter 12 Empowering the School Community through Socially Just and Culturally Responsive Leadership

Dr. Joan G Mowat is a senior lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Strathclyde and author of ‘Using Support Groups to Improve Behaviour,’ published by SAGE. She leads the ‘Into Headship’ programme for prospective headteachers. She has extensive experience in the classroom, latterly as Depute Head at Vale of Leven Academy. She undertook a short secondment as a national development officer for ‘Better Behaviour-Better Learning.’ Her principal research interests are the inclusion of children with social, emotional and behavioural needs, leadership for social justice and the relationship between poverty, attainment and wellbeing. Joan co-led a highly successful Scottish Universities Insight Seminar Series on this topic.

'[This book] offers a comprehensive exploration of how schools can foster inclusion and equity through relational and community-building strategies. This monograph is both academic and practical, presenting a coherent argument that blends policy critique, theoretical insights, and actionable strategies for school leaders, educators, and researchers alike. [...] It challenges educators, policymakers, and researchers to rethink the values and practices that underpin schooling and to embrace a more inclusive, humanistic vision of education. By focusing on relationships, community, and capacity building, Mowat provides a roadmap for creating schools that are not only places of learning but also spaces of belonging, equity, and hope.'

- Gillean McCluskey, Professor of School Exclusion and Restorative Practices in Education, University of Edinburgh, UK’

'This is an important and scholarly book for all those interested in children’s welfare, well-being and successful learning. It offers new insights about creating truly inclusive school communities and offers hope to marginalised young people.'

- Emerita Professor Pamela Munn, Former Dean, Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

'This book offers a compelling alternative perspective to the traditional views of behaviour management in schools. The proposed alternative, focusing on humanistic and relational approaches, is deep and refreshing, a much needed analysis to move towards more inclusive schooling.'

- Professor Sulochini Pather, Institute of Childhood and Education, Leeds Trinity University, UK

'With current policy and guidance in England veering towards zero-tolerance approaches, isolation rooms and punishment in schools, this book offers an empathetic alternative based on social justice, equity and compassion. Never mind Tom Bennett – Joan Mowat should be advising the DFE.'

- Dr. David Colley, Associate Lecturer, Oxford Brookes University

'In questioning the nature and purposes that education should serve, Joan Mowat’s focus on meeting the needs of all young people, in and with their communities, gives new insight, hope and courage to all educators that schools can be equitable, inclusive and compassionate, and that authentic and lasting change is possible through strengthening relationships, creating empowering cultures and environments and building community.'

- Margery McMahon, Professor of Educational Leadership & Head of the School of Education, University of Glasgow.

‘This book intends to bring about change in the lives of children and young people through the promotion of arguments about the relationship between the cultures and practices of schools and the thinking, feeling and actions of those who work and are educated in them and with them […] A very powerful dissection of the orthodoxies of power, influence and authority concludes with a stark warning about the dangers and threats to equitable, inclusive and compassionate forms of schooling. Building a sense of engagement and identity with the world, learning in inclusive classrooms which promote achievement are promoted as key pillars of this view of schooling. Belonging, student voice and relationships become key motifs in this agenda […] This book is packed with ideas, from sometimes very diverse sources, about ways in which the situation in schools can be improved […] This book sets out a vision for the future.’

- Harry Daniels, Professor, Department of Education, University of Oxford, UK

‘This book is a revelation. Mowat explores what ‘equitable, inclusive and compassionate’ schools could (or should be) for school students labelled as having Social, Emotional and Behavioural Needs in Scotland or Social, Emotional and Mental Health Needs in England […] Structural features such as chapter goals, case studies, reflection points and clear diagrams are used to good effect, enhancing the unapologetically high-quality scholarship presented […] ‘The orthodoxy’ of behaviour management as currently understood and practiced in many schools is intellectually unravelled in this book and, rightly, in my view, evaluated by Mowat as ‘no longer a construct of value’ for the education community […] The international focus of this book, and its advocacy for greater compassion in our schools, are timely given geo-political events […] A deeper value of this important book is that it reminds readers that there are alternatives to populist rise-and-repeat educational trends which exclude the most vulnerable.’

- David Armstrong, Associate Professor, Inclusive Education and Specialist Education, School of Education, La Trobe University, Australia

‘In her latest book, Joan Mowat invites us to challenge the entrenched orthodoxies and systems found in various societies and educational establishments in the Western world which serve to exclude and marginalise children and young people and embrace, instead, an alternative world built on creating inclusive, equitable, and compassionate communities. […] In this well researched and balanced book [Mowat] provides various alternative frameworks leading towards a new paradigm of schooling. […] This inspiring book should be an invaluable resource not only to academia and initial teacher education programmes, but for schools to come together and explore how they may become more inclusive, equitable and compassionate communities. […] Joan’s Mowat’s book is an invitation to educators to take a leap of courage and hope… at a time when more than ever we need such communities at both the microcosmic school level as well as the broader societal level.’

- Carmel Cefai, Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Malta, Malta