For over a century teachers parents and school leaders have lamented a loss of 'discipline'
in classrooms. Caught between guidance approaches on the one hand and a call for zero tolerance
on the other current debates rarely venture beyond the terrain of implementation strategies.
This book aims to reinvigorate thinking on 'discipline' in education by challenging the notions
foundations and paradigms that underpin its use in policy and practice. It confronts the
understanding of 'discipline' as purely repressive and raises the possibility of enabling
forms and conceptualizations of 'discipline' that challenge tokenistic avenues for students'
liberation and enhance students' capacity for agency. This book is an essential resource for
university lecturers pre-service and in-service teachers policymakers and educational
administrators who want to re-think 'discipline' in education in ways that move beyond a
concern with managing disorder to generate alternative understandings that can make a
difference in students' lives.
