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Alternative Education Placements (AEPs) are unique and complex settings that serve students with varieties of needs and strengths, though in practice such settings may be used most frequently to serve students with serious challenging behavior. Although research supports a number of individual interventions for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), including intensive, individualized interventions, less is known about adapting such interventions for AEPs, and especially about the potential for AEPs to adopt a flexible, positive, multitiered framework for behavior and school climate. Emerging evidence suggests that Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) can be integrated into alternative education settings with careful planning. This chapter provides (1) an overview of AEPs, (2) a description of six steps recommended for integrating PBIS into AEPs, and (3) a brief overview of recent literature regarding PBIS in AEPs.

This chapter focuses on the special education system of education in Poland since the transformation of the political system in the late 1980s. The move from segregated settings toward more integrated settings for students with low-incidence disabilities is described along with the new structure of special education identification and classroom settings. Current strategies and support for students with high-incidence disabilities in Poland who are placed in general education and special education are discussed. Ideas on how to improve the existing system are outlined and solutions are presented. Overall, the implementation of educational reforms brought about positive changes in educational settings for most students identified with special needs in Poland. Due to this emphasis on inclusion, more students with high-incidence disabilities have the chance to succeed in integrated schools with adequate support.

Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have challenging behaviours that can create significant teaching challenges in group settings such as in mainstream pre-school inclusive settings. This study aims to identify and understand, from the perspectives of mainstream pre-school teachers in Singapore, the type of common challenging behaviours observed in pre-schoolers (mean age = 4.5 years, SD = 1.1, range = 3-6) with ASD.

Participants consisted of 62 teachers (mean age = 35.8 years; SD = 10.8) teaching in mainstream pre-school centres located in Singapore completed an open-ended survey. Twelve codes were generated and served as guidelines for coding the qualitative data. Codes with similar themes were then grouped to form four construct categories: social communication, restricted and repetitive behaviours, attention and learning and others.

Results indicated that difficulty with change/transition and social/peer interaction were the most concerning issues across all settings, whereas “lesson time” and “circle time” were the two most common activities/settings in which the concerns were reported by teachers.

Findings from this paper may add to the limited research looking at the challenging behaviours exhibited by children with ASD in mainstream pre-school settings in Singapore. Understanding the type of challenging behaviours presented in pre-schoolers with ASD and the activities/settings in which these behaviours occur may help the teachers to link the difficulties to specific interventions to further support their inclusion in a mainstream pre-school setting.

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight issues related to the current policy, practice, and research in the area of functional behavioral assessment (FBA) for students with (or at risk for) emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD). Although a substantial research base exists validating the effectiveness of FBA and function-based interventions for students with developmental disabilities, we believe that these same FBA practices are less valid when employed for students with EBD in classroom settings. Following a review of the current research and a discussion of the practical issues that are encountered when implementing FBA in classroom settings serving students with EB, we outline a more responsive FBA model for students with EBD with an emphasis on future policy, research, and practice applications for the field to consider.

Little is known about the characteristics of residential educational settings for young people with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD) in England. Previous research has focussed on the characteristics and experiences of the young people attending such settings rather than the setting itself; therefore, an overview of national provision is needed. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

As part of a larger project, data were collected for all residential schools and colleges in England. Data relate to settings offering residential provision for at least 4 nights per week for 30 weeks per year, either at the school/college itself, or in an associated residential home. Due to the remit of the main project, settings offering placements only to young people aged under 16 were excluded. Data were collected from a range of sources, including school/college websites, Ofsted and Department for Education resources, and liaison directly with the setting.

In total, 342 residential educational settings were identified with 57 of these offering post-16 provisions only. A range of data is presented about these settings, including location, placement numbers and types available, age range catered for, special educational needs categories registered for, governance arrangements (e.g. LA maintained, privately owned, and charitable organisation), and Ofsted educational ratings.

These data provide a national overview of residential educational settings for young people with IDD. This enables a clearer picture of the location and type of provision offered and allows comparisons both within and between areas.

As useful as police data have been in furthering our knowledge of gangs and gang violence networks, not everything about gang networks can be learned from examining police data alone. There are numerous alternative sources of data that already exist on gang networks and some that can be developed further. This study aims to introduce existing research on social networks and gangs with a specific focus on prisons and schools.

This study reviews the existing empirical literature on gang networks in schools and prison settings and use the broader literature on social networks and crime to propose directions for future research, including specific suggestions on data collection opportunities that are considered to be low-cost; that is, strategies that simply make use of existing administrative records in both settings, instead of developing original data collection procedures.

The author found the existing literature on each of these settings to be quite limited, especially when the spotlight is put specifically on gang networks. These shortcomings can be addressed via low-cost opportunities for data collection in each of these settings, opportunities that simply require the network coding of existing administrative records as a foundation for gang network studies.

Investing in these low-cost network data collection activities have the potential for theoretical and empirical contributions on our understanding of gang networks, and may also bring value to practitioners working in school and prison settings as a guide for network-based planning or interventions.

School health promotion is said to be most effective when implemented through a comprehensive, settings‐based, whole‐school approach. The purpose of this paper is to address the current lack of knowledge about the current state of teacher education for health promotion and its potential to further the development of settings‐based approaches.

This paper focuses on an analysis of initial teacher education for school health promotion in Austria by studying the curricula of the Universities of Teacher Education, as well as interviewing representatives from these institutions. A content analysis of the identified modules and a thematic analysis of the interview transcripts were conducted.

While there is more behaviour orientation than setting orientation identified in the curricula, the interviewees showed a broad understanding of health promotion that encompasses a settings view. The situation at the Universities of Teacher Education mirrors the situation in schools: there are similar supporting and hindering factors for the implementation of healthy settings.

A greater degree of focus in teacher education on the settings approach and the promotion of the skills required to implement it is needed, as well as the creation of health‐promoting Universities of Teacher Education.

The study makes recommendations about how to prepare future teachers to support the development of more effective approaches of school health promotion.

The purpose of this research project is to explore the use of technology in enhancing and creating opportunities for collaborative learning by connecting prospective school leaders and practicing principals from multiple settings.

This was a research project in which an internet‐based network system was created in “LiveText” (software) for cross‐collaborative learning among intern prospective school leaders, practicing school administrators from different school settings and university faculty. Data were gathered through focus group discussions, surveys, reflections and the interns' portfolios.

Responses from participants indicated that the technology used in this project: created a forum for prospective school leaders to network and be involved in experiences spanning multiple settings and multiple mentors; enabled the participants to better understand issues of urban/inner‐city, suburban, rural, elementary, middle, and high schools; created opportunities for interns to assess their own knowledge, skills, and dispositions based on Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards; and enabled the development of web‐based electronic portfolios through “LiveText.”

The project demonstrated how technology can be used as a programmatic tool to enhance collaborative learning by: first, countering logistical and structural challenges of organizing multiple setting leadership experiences for aspiring school leaders; and second, dismantling barriers that separate prospective school leaders from diverse practicing school leaders and schools and, thereby, building both strong and weak ties.

During the last 20 years inclusive practices in primary schools have been promoted by policies and worldwide organisations. Scholars confirm that school leaders have an essential role to play with direct impact on meeting children's needs and that there is a chronic deficiency of research on this issue. The purpose of this paper is to describe how strategic leadership roles implemented by head‐teachers can facilitate the implementation of inclusive policies in the school setting and present possible suggestions through the analysis of leadership theories and literature related to inclusion in primary schools.

The methodology this research employs includes a literature review that conceptualises the roles of leadership positions in inclusive settings. This is structured as an explanatory discourse, drawing on the notion of transformational and visionary leadership as the basis of strategic leadership, in order to identify the important role and strategies of leaders in a primary school setting.

The paper highlights the benefits of exploring the role of leaders in these schools. The paper assumes that organisations are complex structures and the analysis indicates that there is not one single exclusive way of implementing an effective role and that alternatives can be created by adapting a flexible framework. This framework is conceptualised by examples from institutions in which leaders have motivated the improvement of school quality by following the described strategic tools. The implications of this for leadership are that Strategic Intent seems to address the directions of the aims of inclusive leaders: it uses unique strategies and relies on the capability of leaders to encourage further dedication and involvement in the organisation's culture. It is suggested that the key components of this framework which will result in the school setting becoming more inclusive consist of: resource allocation, consistency, strategic planning and cultural considerations.

This paper introduces different strategies that can be explored by school leaders with the aim of being implemented in schools.

This paper has developed a framework to which leaders could adapt their own needs and it assists them in their decision‐making process.

Assessment and identification of children with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) is complex and involves multiple techniques, levels, and participants. While federal law sets the general parameters for identification in school settings, these criteria are vague and may lead to inconsistencies in selection and interpretation of assessment measures. Assessment practice across school settings is greatly influenced by clinical guidelines such as the DSM-IV, which more specifically defines emotional and behavioral disorders and highlights the issue of co-morbidity. Before a student is assessed for special education eligibility under the IDEIA category of emotional disturbance, screening techniques and pre-referral interventions are needed. Positive Behavioral Supports and Response to Intervention models provide empirically supported frameworks for establishing the need for formal psychological assessment. Collaboration among members of the multidisciplinary team, including parents, helps to ensure that identification and intervention efforts have ecological validity. Tests and techniques vary considerably, but developmental histories, interviews, observations across settings, and behavioral checklists and rating scales are recommended, along with cognitive and achievement testing. While problems exist in the reliability and validity of projective techniques, they continue to be used in school-based assessment for EBD. Multitrait, multisetting, and multimethod approaches are essential for culturally fair assessment and reduction of bias in identification and placement.