ABSTRACT

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most commonly diagnosed psychiatric condition of childhood worldwide, yet the medical and psychological perspectives that dominate our understandings of ADHD present problems in their reductive understanding of the condition. Exploring ADHD incorporates Michel Foucault’s notions of discourse and power into a critical ethnographic framework in order to analyse ADHD in terms of both the historical conditions that have shaped understandings of the disorder, and also the social conditions which build individual diagnostic cases in today’s schools and families. 

In this ground-breaking text, Simon Bailey also:

  • acknowledges the necessary work of classrooms, schools and families in contributing to a social order;
  • examines the problem of teacher autonomy and the constraints placed on schools to ‘perform’;
  • describes the role of nurture groups in governing the emotional conduct of children;
  • presents a unique gender analysis of ADHD.

This fascinating new book will be of interest to researchers and academics in the field of early childhood education, special and inclusive education, and will illuminate and spark new debate in the arena of ADHD.

chapter |14 pages

Introducing ADHD

chapter |19 pages

Time, Space and Possibility

chapter |26 pages

Children, Schools and Families

chapter |16 pages

Routine Conduct

chapter |23 pages

Boys will be Boys

chapter |16 pages

Invisible Parentwork

chapter |16 pages

The Nurturing Formula

chapter |8 pages

Another Order is Possible