In essence the Ecological Systems Approach is the acceptance of a new perspective on the child’s behaviour, and how it relates to other areas of the child’s existence outside the school perspective. How many times when discussing a pupil’s behaviour in class, have teachers at a parents evening heard the parents saying “well they're never like this at home” or “are you sure you’ve got the right child”. This is due to the parents' own perspective of the child behaviour within their family “system”.

This approach sees the development of both normal and abnormal behaviour as a product of the child’s environment. All aspects of the child’s environment must be considered. In order to comprehend better the EBD child in the classroom, one must not just seek to understand the child’s teacher and classmate experiences, but also the child’s experiences within their family, neighbourhood and community. This is known as the Child’s System. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties are seen as the result of discrepancies between the child’s skills and abilities, and the demands and expectations placed on the child within the environment that they are existing within at that time.

The theoretical origins of this perspective rest on Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s “General System Theory” (1950, 1968). In this human beings are seen as existing in a social web (similar to a biological ecosystem). The individual’s behaviour and development is both influenced by, as well as an influence on, the behaviour and development of others with whom they interact in the web. Thus human behaviour is the product of an ongoing interaction between social environments and internal motivations (gained from previous social experiences). These systems include the home, family, religion, culture, sub-culture, community, as well as school. There are always interconnected elements between these systems. Hence any alteration in one system can have repercussions in the others. For example in a social system (e.g. the family), there is a change within a part of the system (e.g. the parental relationship), this affects the whole social system (e.g. also affects children of family), which may influence allied systems (e.g. school).

Molnar & Lindquist (1989) in the USA, involved both teachers and other educational personnel in developing a range of techniques with practical value in the classroom. This work is focuses on “oppositional” behaviour, which represent deliberate, repeated infringements on classroom rules imposed to necessitate effective teaching. These behavioural difficulties are commonly persistent and appear resistant to standard countering approaches available to teachers (e.g. reasoning, punishment, ignoring, detention, etc.). These “lineal” approaches frequently serve to maintain and promote the behaviour they seek to alter.

To apply an ecosystem approach it is necessary for the teacher to “reframe” the problem that the pupil is presenting, turning a positive into a negative. This means placing a co-operative or positive connotation on what is previously seen as unacceptable behaviour.

Consider, for example, a pupil who constantly interrupts and ignores all countermeasures to no avail. If the teacher interprets the behaviour from the pupils point of view, taking into account factors such as the child’s current family system, they may view the child in a new light. The pupil in the example, may be seeking and failing to receive attention at home, due to some family imbalance such as marital breakdown. The child seeks to focus parental attention on themselves by becoming disruptive at school. The use of punishments or any other form of negative reciprocation, just seek to reward this attention seeking behaviour. The child is in fact struggling to maintain balance in their life by their disruptive behaviour.

Teachers must perceive the child’s behaviour as a symptom of a problem of family system origin(or any other system external to school), but which overlaps into the school system. Then the teacher can present a new interpretation of their behaviour. This is known as “paradoxical injunction”, where by a situation of conflict becomes a situation of co-operation in which the teacher regains control without the pupil losing face or autonomy of action.

In the example given, the child could be praised or singled out for making the teacher repeat themselves more clearly for the whole of the class, the child may even be encouraged to interrupt more often.

Deprived of a “barrier against which to kick”, and presented a new undesirable rationale for their negative behaviour, the behaviour becomes redundant.

The goal of any planned intervention is to manipulate the part of the child’s system over which the teacher has control (e.g. class or homework), in a manner that will not cause conflicting expectations and experiences. For example, rather than setting separate homework for a pupil who fails to complete even their class work, allow the pupil to take this home for completion. This sets a more realistic goal for the child, and also involves their family system (i.e. the parents), who would then examine their influence on the child school system.

One of the strengths of ecological approaches is that due to it mainly being a change of perspective, looking for the causes of the behaviour out side of the classroom, it can easily be combined with several other intervention techniques which neglect this aspect i.e. behaviourism or self-esteem enhancement strategies.

Brown, J. (1986), “The use of paradoxical intervention with opposition behaviour in the classroom”, Psychology in the School, Vol. 21, 1, pages 77-81.

de Shazer, S. (1982), “Patterns of Brief Family Therapy: An Ecosystems Approach”, USA, New York, Guilford Press.

de Shazer, S. (1985), “Keys to Solution”, USA, New York, Norton.

Gittelman-Kleim, Abikoff, Pollack, Kein, Katz & Mattes, (1980), “A controlled trial of behaviour modification and methylphenidate in hyperactive children”. Cited in Whalen and Henker’s Hyperactive Children: The social ecology of identification and treatment, USA New York, Academic Press.

Minuchin, S. (1974), “Families and Family Therapy”, Cambridge, Harvard University Press.

Mandel et al, (1975), “Reaching Emotionally Disturbed Children: JUDO principles in remedial education”, In the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Vol. 45, 5, pages 867-74.

Molnar, A. & Lindquist, B. (1989), “Changing Problem Behaviour in Schools”, USA, San Fancisco, Jossey-Bass.

Phillips, J. S. & Ray, R. S. (1980), “Behavioural Approaches to Childhood Disorders: Review and Critique”, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, USA, Vol 27, pages 619-622.