This paper presents an actual and relevant theme in school: «how can school face children’s social, emotional and behavioral difficulties (SEBD)?». This question was split in more focused research questions and one of them was: «which different roles can teachers assume to face children’s SEBD? Which are their targets?» The development of a particular understanding of school’s life follows directly from the methodology that we use, as researchers. In our work we try to find out how teachers cope with the complexities of children’s SEBD, instead of reducing the complexities of these situations into a few manageable research variables. This statement means looking at teacher’s experience as practical knowledge (Clandinin, 1986; Connelly & Clandinin, 1988). «Practical knowledge» describes people’s knowledge of ongoing matters in every day life (Elbaz-Luwish, 2005) and it stresses the embodied nature of their knowledge. It is the same nature of teacher’s knowledge, which is continually developed from lived-situations and lived-relationships. Teacher’s understanding of children’s difficulties is not theoretically performed, but it is shaped by each different case, they face. Therefore it’s important to get access to their daily experience through their stories about the SEBD they meet (Clandinin at all., 2006). The aim of the research was to get access to the knowledge of teachers from their practice (practical knowledge) that means to gain entry to the theory that performs their experience. This theory is a theoretical frame, often an implicit one, about children and their difficulties, about school and its responsibilities and functions. Therefore, our goal was to find out the theoretical assumptions, from the ground-up: from teacher’s experiences we constructed a qualitatively derived theory (Morse, 2004). Specifically we reached some relevant concepts on school’s attitude coping with children’s SEBD.

The research is a narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connolly, 2000) that aims to understand the experience of school from inside, especially from a specific emic-view. Narratives allow researchers to focus on listening to the voice of teachers and hearing their stories. However narratives were collected through open-ended interviews: teachers told their story about how they faced a child case of SEBD (the one they feel of a particular relevance during their professional history). We interviewed compulsory school teachers and teachers with a specific «systemic role», who have the vocation to arise strategies in order to face children’s SEBD. The teachers, with a «systemic role», work in network with other subjects (parents, teachers, social services, etc.) and their role in more broader that the standard one. This paper aims to present the key-concepts rose from the systemic teacher’s stories, in order to highlight the attitude of schools in coping SEBD.

The research project aims to find out evidences about good-practices in coping ESBD’s situations in the school system. This paper presents some relevant concepts we achieved, which concern teacher’s practical knowledge. The particular point of view (teachers with a systemic role) we taken into account makes available some significant concepts about the following topics: - practical and daily strategies used from a systemic point of view; - the relationship among school, its specific role and the strategies used by teachers; - the school connections with parents, social services and the community; - the theoretical framework that performs the school settings and actions.