Papers
Routine (dis)order in an infant school
Co-authored with Pat Thomson, published in Ethnography & Education, 2009
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is popularly understood to be a condition which resides in the person. In this scenario, the school is an innocent bystander, a container for the 'maladjusted child'. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of one classroom, the first stage of doctoral research into the production of the diagnosis of ADHD, we argue that the school is complicit in the construction of the (dis)order. It is the micro-practices of routinisation, material manifestations of normative discourses of good behaviour and a medicalised episteme that include some children, while excluding others. Those who fail to conform to the norms are singled out for 'special' (education) treatment, one form of which is a diagnosis of ADHD.
Disordered performance: Schooling gender and ADHD
Conference paper, BERA 2008
Estimates suggest that males are between five and ten times as likely as females to be diagnosed with ADHD, however gender analyses within this area are notable for their absence. Within education one may seek a formula whereby "failing boys" plus "feminised primary schools" equals an oppressed residue of young males whose particular brand of masculinity is deemed unacceptable, pathologised and drugged. This chapter seeks to understand some of the reasons why so many more young males than females are pathologised in this way. Yet while the formula above may be seen as a point of departure, it will be problematised from several angles. Placed within a gender equity framework several alternative conceptions on "failing boys" and "feminised" schools will be discussed through post-structural gender discourses and through observational and interview data on gender "performance" (Butler, 1990) in one early years setting. In terms of gender equity, ADHD can be seen as a form of "patriarchal dividend" (Connell, 1995), and the implications and contradictions of this conception will be discussed.
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Lost in translation: Parental agency and specialist therapeutics
Conference paper, BSA 2008
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most commonly diagnosed psychiatric disorders of childhood worldwide with prevalence estimates starting at about 5% in the UK (Taylor, 2006) and 10% in the US (CDC, 2003). This paper explores individual accounts of what it means to be a parent of a child with ADHD. It is first suggested that feelings of guilt and responsibility accompany the "behaviourally disordered" child and that it is the mother who feels the greater force of this causal insinuation. In each of the two cases presented here, these feelings led to a position of advocacy being taken up by each mother on behalf of their child. Each mother may have adopted this position in order to regain some agency in decision making processes regarding their children, however the reverse effect was frequently experienced with each mother facing repeated subversion of their identity, leading them further in to the "project" of parenting according to medically conceived truths of behavioural "disorder"
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So, what's all the fuss about nurture groups?
Conference paper, BERA 2007
Nurture groups have a long history in educational theory and practice, however since the government's stated support of their use as part of the school behavioural strategy in 1997, their use in UK primary schools has been on a steady increase, and 2004's Every Child Matters (DfES, 2004), solidified this institutionalisation. Nurture groups represent one of the primary ways in which schools may attempt to tackle the challenges posed by the perceived increase in children's Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (EBDs). As such they represent an attempt to fill part of the considerable resource gap for problems of this kind, however, they are not without problems of their own. Firstly, the rise of the nurture group can be seen as part of the rise of therapeutic discourse within primary education. Its wisdom is that of developmental psychology, couched in the language of risk and self-esteem; the increasing hold that pre-occupations such as these have in education must continue to be questioned. Secondly, as part of an early intervention based on withdrawal from the mainstream, nurture groups present several paradoxes amongst the politics of recognition and inclusion. These issues will be discussed in light of ethnographic data drawn from observations and interviews was collected over a period of 8 months, from September 2006. Through this data, it will be argued that the everyday politics of the nurture groups in these sites has emerged through a discourse which may actually work to disempower those staff and children most closely associated with the groups. In conclusion discussion will focus on the productive effects of therapeutic discourse in education and the role it may play in distributing these various positions of vulnerability
ADHD - What's in a name?
Conference paper, BERA 2006
Through a critical interrogation of psychiatric taxonomy and a Foucauldian extension of risk theory, this paper argues for a radical opposition to the accepted wisdom concerning ADHD. Currently practice is dominated by a bio-psychiatric model of mental disorder, as represented by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorder (Currently DSM-IV-TR). What can be seen through the rise of this manual, is a progressive pervasion of psychiatric norms into the classroom. What the rise of ADHD exemplifies is the imposition of an exclusionary, functionalist order into the classroom, supported by arbitrarily shifting norms. What children diagnosed with ADHD represent is a threat to this order and what the DSM offers is an easy way out, couched in the "value-free" language of biological disorder. In order to move outside this hegemonic discourse, this paper proposes an alternative name for ADHD, a name free of the reified and politically correct language of psychiatry; a name that represents fully the conservative paranoia that "difficult" children invoke, and speaks honestly about the conditions of domination that it represents. What this paper will argue is that children should no longer be diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, but being Abnormally Deficient and Highly Dangerous
Constructing an "other" citizen: The case of ADHD
Conference paper, NERA 2006
There are increased numbers of young children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in English Schools. The definition of ADHD brings together a broad range of inattentive, impulsive and disruptive behaviours, which are widely perceived to be detrimental to the potential academic success of both the child and their classroom peers. The clinical definition of ADHD (A.P.A, 2003) has widespread take up in schools and the major debates are focused on treatment. It is argued here that the site of diagnosis is the point at which a fabricated identity is imposed onto "the problematic child". This diagnosis is based on normative constructions of what it means to be a good citizen of both school and society. It is proposed; firstly, that such deficit thinking betrays an instrumental rationality within dominant political views of what Primary education should be; secondly, that such governmentality (Foucault, 1979) represents a narrowing of the democratic ideal and lies in fundamental contradiction to notions of social justice, equity and inclusion within both school and society
Disordered experiences: Beyond myth/reality
Thematic review, published in British Educational Research Research Journal, 2008
This essay reviews:
Critical New Perspectives on ADHD
Gwynedd Lloyd, Joan Stead & David Cohen (Eds.), 2006
London, Routledge
236 pp.
ISBN 0415360374
Seeing red: critical narrative in ADHD research
Brenton Prosser, 2006
Teneriffe, Queensland, Post Pressed
317 pp.
ISBN 1876682922
ADHD: who's failing who?
Brenton Prosser, 2006
Sydney, Finch
214 pp.
ISBN 1876451718
Diagnosing 'disorderly' children
Valerie Harwood, 2006
London, Routledge
173 pp.
ISBN 0415342872
Understanding and supporting children with ADHD
Lesley Hughes& Paul Cooper, 2007
London, Paul Chapman
101 pp.
ISBN 978-1412918619
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