Teachers' beliefs about inappropriate behaviour: challenging attitudes?

This paper focuses on taking a first step in the process of influencing teachers' attitudes by building a description of beliefs about inappropriate behaviour that can be used in staff development work to provoke dissonance-led change. It describes a study, undertaken in two parts, exploring teachers' attitudes to inclusion, and ascertaining their views on the personal qualities believed important in successfully supporting students whose behaviour was considered inappropriate for mainstream classrooms. Cognitive dissonance can be a tool for teacher educators to challenge teachers' awareness of the foundations of their existing practice and then to create and develop new ways forward. The studies reported in this paper suggest that teacher' attitudes to the inclusion of students with behaviour which challenges, and the notion that such behaviour is beyond the influence of the teacher, is not consonant with their ability to identify personal qualities which are effective in supporting those same students.