How a Practitioner Thinks in Action: Shaping Pedagogical and Didactic Strategies for Students with Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties through Textual Analysis of a Teacher's Journal

An experienced special education teacher, newly arrived in an urban school for students with emotional, social and behavioral difficulties, kept a journal spanning the first 95 days at work. Using qualitative content analysis, the field notes were organized by subject areas (work conditions, student behavior, teacher interventions, collaboration with colleagues, work with parents, inter-professional work and school-community relationships, as well as the teacher's reflections) and analyzed with reference to the patterns in them. The results not only provide insights into a challenging educational reality but also provide information for a deeper understanding of student behavior, for the further development of teaching and behavior-related intervention, for supporting the journal-keeping teacher, and for improvement of the overall pedagogical culture of subject school.