Why Do Young People Misbehave in School? | Mina A.

Girgis

Why Do Young
People Misbehave
in School?
Pedagogy for positive learning - 1020822

Mina-Abanoub Girgis – 18371475

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 Why Do Young People Misbehave in School? | Mina A. Girgis

Introduction

Student misbehaviour is seen as one of the biggest obstacles to teacher pedagogy

and effective learning environments. The understanding of how to deal with student

misbehaviour within a classroom is the burden of both educators and researches alike.

Kyriacou (1997) has defined student misbehaviour as “any behaviour that undermines

the teacher’s ability to establish and maintain effective learning experience in the

classroom"(p. 121). This type of misbehaviour can range from a student simply chatting

to his friends, to an outright disruption of a classroom through aggressive or

inappropriate behaviour. Teachers have endeavoured for years to identify the reasons

as to why students misbehave and to wield that knowledge to deal with said students

within a classroom environment. The aim of this report is to assess and answer the

question: Why do young people misbehave in school? In order to effectively come to a

stable conclusion, a variety of literature has been chosen that addresses the topic. An

interview of six participants has also been undertaken and the participants’ responses

will be synthesized with the literature. To finalise, the report will provide the

implications for teacher practises on dealing with student misbehaviour, based on the

synthesis.

Literature Review

The variety of literature chosen focuses on the concept of misbehaviour within

classrooms and the methods teachers can use to deal with these misbehaviours. Glock &

Kleen (2018) stress the idea that there are multiple types of student misbehaviour,

importantly, certain misbehaviour requires no intervention while other misbehaviours

do require immediate teacher intervention. De Nobile, Lyons and Arthur-Kelly (2017)

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 Why Do Young People Misbehave in School? | Mina A. Girgis

note that before a teacher can effectively intervene, however, understanding the context

and cause for student misbehaviour is paramount in order to find effective pre-emptive

strategies. Yuan (2012) breaks the causes of student behaviour into three categories:

the child, the teacher and society. For the child, Yuan (2012) states that the student

could be seeking attention through his misbehaviour or that the student has learning

difficulties and misbehaves due to difficult content that threatens their self-esteem (pg.

145). Attention seeking as a reason for misbehaviour, is an idea that comes up regularly

when discussing student misbehaviour, both Glock & Kleen (2018) and Johnson et al.

(2018) made note of this throughout their research. The literature also speaks about

lack of engagement and the general unwillingness of students to engage in classroom

learning as a misbehaviour (Debreli & Ishanova, 2019).

Tracking back to Yuan (2012), his other cause for misbehaviour was, as a result

of the teacher. He notes that a teacher’s pedagogy, if weak or boring, could provoke,

otherwise well-behaved students, to misbehave (Yuan, 2012). Debreli & Ishanova’s

(2019) article shares Yuan’s notion, stating that teachers have been motivated to create

interesting and thought-provoking lessons in order to suppress potential student

misbehaviour. This confirms the notion that a major reason for student misbehaviour

must be that students are struggling to engage with the content.

Finally, Yuan’s (2018) third reason for misbehaviour involved society or the

environment around the student. This involves factors such as trouble at home, socio-

economic status and out of school lifestyle. Research undertaken by, Bonell et al. (2017)

confirmed this idea further, stating that findings showed that students who were more

prone to smoking and drinking as a result of surrounding environments, were not

academically committed with their schooling.

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 Why Do Young People Misbehave in School? | Mina A. Girgis

Method

Participants

The method for this report involved interviewing six participants in an informal

manner. The interviews were conversation based and did not follow a rigid structure.

All participants were simply asked: Why do young people misbehave in school?, in

addition to follow up questions based on the dynamics of their answer. The sample

consisted of three males and three females. The details and method of naming are as

follow:

Participant One (Female) Experienced schoolteacher currently

working in a behavioural college

Participant Two (Male) Chiropractor and parent of three children
Participant Three (Female) Graduate schoolteacher working in a low

socio-economic school
Participant Four (Male) University student studying finance
Participant Five (Female) Student teacher on her first semester of a

Master of Teaching (secondary)

Participant Six (Male) Graduate project manager

Emergent Themes

Initial reflection of the interview responses was interesting due to the

similarities throughout every response. These similarities were present despite

conscious efforts to interview people who had never met before and came from

differing aspects of life. During the conduction of each interview it was important to

immediately recognise similarities and common themes between all responses. It is

interesting to note that every single participant mentions that one of the reasons for

misbehaviour is attention seeking, while five out of six participants made mention of

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 Why Do Young People Misbehave in School? | Mina A. Girgis

troubles at home being a cause. Due to the prevalence of common themes between

every participant, the themes will be identified and separately addressed with outlying

opinions discussed at the end. The themes are as follow, Home life, Attention

seeking/Peer approval and Teacher shortcomings.

Home life

The mention of troubles at home or a negative home life was an extremely

common response, that was not only spoken about explicitly by most participants but

was also mentioned as the underlying reasons for other causes of misbehaviour.

Participant four (P4) immediately responded saying that if “If a student is misbehaving

then they’re going through something at home.” P4 also grounded all his responses in

the home environment being the underlying cause. He also mentioned that a lack of

discipline from parents at home reflects student behaviour, posting responsibility

mostly to the parents and home environment. This is a drastic contrast between P6 who

made no mention of home life as a cause and instead focused his reasons for

misbehaviour entirely towards the teacher. P2 on the other hand, stated six reasons for

student misbehaviour, four out of the six reasons focused on the home environment. P2

focused a lot of his causes on the lack of confidence within the child, he made it clear

that it is the responsibility of the parents and home environment to ensure that their

child does not have low confidence in themselves and cannot act out for that reason. P1

and P3 (Both school teachers) also mentioned home life, but inextricably linked it with

attention seeking, stating that “They seek the attention they don’t receive at home.”

Attention seeking/Peer approval

Although every participant made mention of attention seeking as a cause for

misbehaviour, the participants reasons for attention seeking, however, varied. P5

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 Why Do Young People Misbehave in School? | Mina A. Girgis

implied that students need to seek attention by acting out when the lesson is not

allowing them to express themselves. She states that if a lesson does not allow the

students to speak up and discuss their opinion, they act out as a means of receiving the

attention the lesson is not giving them. P6, on the other hand, stated that students want

attention from their friends, and so they act out to receive that peer approval or impress

the opposite sex. This response was also shared by P4. Finally, P2 stated that the

attention seeking comes from wanting attention from the teacher, he stated that if the

teacher has favouritism the child will act up in order to attract the teacher’s attention

that they are giving to other students.

Teacher shortcomings

The shortcomings of the teacher as a result of misbehaviour was another

common theme. P3 spoke about students misbehaving as a result of not respecting the

teacher, she said that this could be because the teacher demands respect from them and

is seen as just a figure that “wants to shove knowledge into their heads.” P6 spoke

extensively about teachers being to blame for misbehaviour, he is quoted saying, “Young

people don’t like being controlled and constantly told what they can and can’t do.”

Unique responses

Responses that were not shared or similar to other responses were considered

unique responses. P1, an experienced school teacher, was the only participant that

stated that sometimes a student misbehaves because they are struggling with the

content and would rather get in trouble than hurt their self-esteem. P4 also stated that a

student could simply want to feel in control and powerful within the classroom and

seeks to usurp power from the teacher. When asked why a student would want this, he

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 Why Do Young People Misbehave in School? | Mina A. Girgis

stated that maybe he’s used to manipulating his parents and so wants to manipulate and

be in control of his teachers as well.

Analysis

Other than a few outlying responses, most responses were very similar to the

literature, particularly those coming from teachers and student teachers. On the topic of

the home environment, the findings of both Yuan (2012) and Johnson et al. (2018) were

extremely similar to the comments of participants, particularly P5, stating that troubles

at home can force students to disregard their learning. The literature did not state

however that issues at home could lead to seeking attention (Yuan, 2012; Glock & Kleen,

2019; Aldrup et al., 2018). This is a major difference between the literature and

interview responses, as almost all participants who mentioned attention seeking related

it to home life. The theme that showed most similarities between the interview

responses and literature, is that of teacher shortcomings. Aldrup et al. (2018) states that

a positive student-teacher relationship consists of “Respect, warmth and trust” and is

pivotal to getting students to behave (p. 127). This mirrors comments by P3 in which

she notes that if a student respects a teacher they will behave. Glock and Kleen (2018)

state, “One of the best strategies that teachers can apply… is to prepare a well-

structured and interesting lesson while showing withitness, overlapping and group

altering” (p. 53). Participants 1, 3 and 5 spoke about this idea extensively. The common

factor between all of them is involvement within the teaching field. Further similarities

can be seen in the Debreli and Ishanova (2019) resource, which comments on the

negative stigma of teachers being seen as “control mechanisms.” It seems that the

comments by P6 were influenced strongly by said stigma, as most of his causes for

misbehaviour revolved around teacher control.

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 Why Do Young People Misbehave in School? | Mina A. Girgis

As seen in the literature review, the way a teacher teaches the class is important

in preventing misbehaviour and ensuring engagement (Yuan, 2012; Debreli & Ishanova,

2019). Yuan (2012) stated that student failure to engage with the content could provoke

misbehaviour, this parallels P1’s response to the question, in which she stated that they

would rather act up then risk looking “dumb” if they attempt to engage.

Implications for practice

After synthesising both the literature and interview responses together, it is safe

to conclude that reasons for misbehaviour vary strongly and are not static. As with the

dynamic nature of misbehaviour, so to must teachers be dynamic in their responses and

methods of dealing with students. It is known that student misbehaviour is damaging to

both teacher pedagogy and mental health, unfortunately, it is the indefinite

responsibility of the teacher to deal with said misbehaviour. De Nobile, Lyons and

Athur-Kelly (2017) urge teachers to begin addressing student behaviour by

understanding “antecedents” and “consequences.” The circumstances that precede

behaviour is important to note so that “antecedent control” can be utilised. This pushes

the notion that a teacher can be in control of what creates bad behaviour before it starts.

When looking at the interview responses, five out of six participants spent considerable

time speaking about teacher-related reasons for student misbehaviour. What this shows

is that the consensus believes that teachers undoubtedly play the biggest role in student

behaviour. P3 spoke about one of the simplest yet pivotal ways teachers can avoid

student misbehaviour, stating that teaches must make effort to show their students that

they care about them and their personal life. “Learn their names quickly and integrate

their personal interests into your pedagogy” (P3). Similarly, Jong (2006) states that

teachers must take a personal interest in the lives of each student if they are to connect

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 Why Do Young People Misbehave in School? | Mina A. Girgis

with them and have positive student-teacher relationships. These interpersonal

relations are key to maintaining a classroom free of misbehaviour and instead creating

an environment that revolves around respect and trust, as stated by Aldrup et al.

(2018). In addition to this, however, the interpersonal relationship with students can

also allow students to trust the teacher and so they might be able to speak up to the

teacher about issues at home, which therefore addresses another major reason for

misbehaviour.

Moreover, another implication that stems from the synthesis of the literature and

interviews is the importance of holistic and engaging pedagogy. Since misbehaviour as a

result of non-engaging or intimidating learning was mentioned regularly throughout

both interviews and literature, it is imperative for teachers to understand that lesson

plans and lesson engagement is directly correlated with student behaviour. (Glock &

Kleen, 2019; Aldrup et al., 2018; Yuan, 2012; Debreli & Ishinova, 2019). Hence, teachers

must be aware of this when creating lesson plans to engage those students who would

otherwise misbehave. Taking such measures can hopefully create a learning

environment that satisfies De Nobile, Lyons, & Arthur-Kelly’s (2017) five basic needs of

students: survival, belonging, power, freedom and fun. (p. 2225).

References

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 Why Do Young People Misbehave in School? | Mina A. Girgis

Aldrup, K., Klusmann, U., Lü dtke, O., Gö llner, R., & Trautwein, U. (2018). Student

misbehavior and teacher well-being: Testing the mediating role of the teacher-

student relationship. Learning And Instruction, 58, 126-136.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2018.05.006

Bonell, C., Shackleton, N., Fletcher, A., Jamal, F., Allen, E., & Mathiot, A. et al. (2016).

Student- and school-level belonging and commitment and student smoking,

drinking and misbehaviour. Health Education Journal, 76(2), 206-220.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0017896916657843

De Jong, T. (2005). A Framework of Principles and Best Practice for Managing Student

Behaviour in the Australian Education Context. School Psychology

International, 26(3), 353-370. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034305055979

De Nobile, J., Lyons, G., & Arthur-Kelly, M., (2017). Positive Learning Environments:

Creating and Maintaining Productive Classrooms. South Melbourne, Australia:

Cengage

Debreli, E., Ishanova, I., & Sheppard, C. (2019). Foreign language classroom

management: Types of student misbehaviour and strategies adapted by the

teachers in handling disruptive behaviour. Cogent Education, 6(1).

https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2019.1648629

Glock, S., & Kleen, H. (2018). Teachers’ responses to student misbehavior: the role of

expertise. Teaching Education, 30(1), 52-68.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210.2018.1444023

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 Why Do Young People Misbehave in School? | Mina A. Girgis

Johnson, Z., Goldman, Z., & Claus, C. (2018). Why Do Students Misbehave? An Initial

Examination of Antecedents to Student Misbehavior. Communication

Quarterly, 67(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/01463373.2018.1483958

Kyriacou, C. (1997). Effective Teaching in Schools. (2nd ed.). Cheltenham: Nelson

Thornes.

Yuan, X., & Che, L. (2012). How to Deal with Student Misbehaviour in the

Classroom?. Journal Of Educational And Developmental Psychology, 2(1).

https://doi.org/10.5539/jedp.v2n1p143

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