Becoming a problem: behaviour and reputation in the early years classroom

Abstract

How does it happen that some children acquire a reputation as a ‘problem’ in school? The article discusses some findings of a qualitative study involving children in the Reception year (ages 4–5). The research focused on problematic behaviour as this emerged within, and was shaped by, the culture of the classroom. A key question for the research was: what makes it difficult for some children to be, and to be recognised as, good students? Using an analytic framework derived from discourse and conversation analysis, we identify some critical factors in the production of reputation, including: the ‘discursive framing’ of behaviour; the public nature of classroom discipline; the linking of behaviour, learning and emotions; the interactional complexities of being (seen to be) good, and the demands on children of passing as the ‘proper child’ required by prevailing discourses of normal development, as coded in UK early years curriculum policy and pedagogy.

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to the children and school staff who took part in the research.

Notes

1. The research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Project title: ‘Becoming a problem: How and Why children acquire a reputation as “naughty” in the earliest years at school’, ref: RES–062‐23‐0105.

2. Something of the history of the topic can be glimpsed in its shifting terminologies: ‘maladjusted’ (Ministry of Education, 1955); ‘deviant’ (Hargreaves et al., 1975; Kaplan, 1980), ‘troublesome’ (Caspari, 1976), ‘disruptive’ (Tattum, 1982); ‘disaffected’ (Furlong, 1991; Sanders & Hendry, 1997), ‘anti‐social’ (Walker et al., 1995), ‘disengaged’ (Nardi & Steward, 2002). ‘Emotional and behavioural difficulties’ (EBD) has been favoured over the past decade (Chazan et al., 1994), possibly because it carries the combined authority of ‘legal, medical and educational connotations’ (Thomas, 2005, p. 60). The term has latterly been extended to ‘emotional, social and behavioural difficulties’ (EBSD). ‘Emotional intelligence’ (Goleman, 1996) and ‘emotional literacy’ (Sharp, 2001) have achieved some currency, reflecting perhaps a trend towards ‘the emotionalisation of everyday life’ (Burman, 2006, p. 2). ‘Challenging behaviour’ represents a ‘more respectful and less deficiency oriented’ alternative to “EBD”’ (Visser, 2003, p. 20).

3. Work has emerged more recently which attempts to understand behaviour in its wider educational and familial contexts, and to develop strategies for working with teachers and families (see Roffey, 2006; Papatheodorou, 2007). Our research can be seen as offering empricial and and theoretical insights that might support such work.

4. Macbeth was referring specifically to the ground‐breaking analyses of classrooms by Mehan (e.g., 1979).

5. Discursive frames were identified by collecting together and analysing instances in the fieldnote, video and interview data where teachers and other school staff offered explanations for children’s behaviour, or for their own attitudes towards individual children. These instances were then assembled into three overarching frames (family & community; medicalisation; child attributes) that accounted for most of the instances.

6. Matt, by contrast, was not treated in an explicitly ‘exemplary’ way. School staff made little explicit reference to his behaviour, and decided to adopt a ‘wait and see’ strategy, rather than intervening. By the end of the period of research, the behaviours which had caused concern had noticeably diminished.

7. We discuss the pathologising of difference further in Jones et al. (2010a, 2010b).

8. The Early Years Foundations Stage (EYFS) can be viewed online at: http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/earlyyears (accessed 30 September 2010). It should be noted that the original draft of this article was written prior to May 2010, when a new Coalition Government was elected. The website referred to here now bears a banner stating: ‘A new UK Government took office on 11 May. As a result the content on this site may not reflect current Government policy’.

9. http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/earlyyears (accessed 30 September 2010). See note 8 above concerning post‐May 11 UK policy.