Abstract

This research identified the experiences of teachers who support learners identified with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) in mainstream primary schools. A narrative approach enabled teachers to share their complex portrayals of practices and feelings about their roles. The study explores how the relationships between teachers and their pupils are influenced by perspectives on models of disability and disability rights, and performativity. Reflections on the way these teachers constructed discourses about why some children exhibit disruptive behaviours provide an understanding of how their negotiation of this challenging context impacts on the relationships they form with the children. The stories the teachers shared highlighted the different discourses they develop about the behaviours exhibited by the children in their mainstream classrooms. They appear to identify three different ways of positioning the behaviours: medical diagnoses; inappropriate upbringing which results in child vulnerability; and deliberate choice to demonstrate disruptive and disturbing actions. The findings suggest that teachers experience confusion due to the complexities and contradictions they are faced with when trying to support learners identified with SEBD in an education system which incorporates policies guided by different models of disability: the categorisations they build are a way of making sense of the difficulties they face in the classroom. It is argued that a rights-based approach to teaching children who exhibit challenging, disruptive and concerning behaviours would emancipate children from the restrictive views and beliefs teachers seem to have developed.