Building Community to Create Equitable, Inclusive and Compassionate Schools through Relational Approaches

Creating supportive educational environments for all students

Joan G Mowat author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:30th Nov '22

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

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Building Community to Create Equitable, Inclusive and Compassionate Schools through Relational Approaches cover

This insightful book explores how schools can become more equitable and inclusive, focusing on relational approaches to support children and young people.

This book draws on a comprehensive body of international literature and policy across various fields to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies and systemic issues that marginalize children and young people. Building Community to Create Equitable, Inclusive and Compassionate Schools through Relational Approaches paves the way for schools to adopt more equitable, inclusive, and compassionate practices. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the broader context that shapes educational environments and the experiences of students within them.

Focusing specifically on children with social, emotional, and behavioral or mental health needs, the text critiques existing policies and practices related to behavior management and school discipline in both the UK and the USA. By offering alternative perspectives rooted in collaborative and relational approaches, the book promotes positive behavior and fosters a sense of community. Each chapter includes reflection points designed to stimulate discussion and suggests additional reading materials, ultimately leading to a conversation about the role of school leaders in advocating for social justice.

Building Community to Create Equitable, Inclusive and Compassionate Schools through Relational Approaches is a valuable resource for scholars, researchers, and students in behavior management, inclusion, and special needs education. It also appeals to education professionals and school leaders focused on the mental health and well-being of children and young people, providing insights and strategies for creating supportive educational environments.

'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.’

- HarryDaniels, 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.’

- DavidArmstrong, 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.’

- CarmelCefai, Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Malta, Malta

ISBN: 9781138607606

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 640g

290 pages