Disruptive or disrupted? A qualitative study on the construction of indiscipline

Abstract

This paper examines current official discourses on school discipline in Britain. It analyses New Labour’s recent documents in education, such as the party’s manifestos, Green and White papers, and official guidelines, to understand which particular understandings of discipline are being promoted. In spite of a political commitment to social inclusion, New Labour’s current discourses on discipline do not affect all pupils equally. A conception of indiscipline as originating at the home and predominantly in certain cultural and social backgrounds has been proposed, which may be deepening social inequalities in education. The paper concludes that one needs to depart from a bipolar conception of indiscipline (that promotes a view of pupils as being either disruptive or disrupted), which disadvantages the pupils from certain minority ethnic backgrounds. The paper also suggests that context and school institutional and organizational processes must be taken into account if one is to promote social justice in disciplinary matters.