ABSTRACT
‘School refusal’ is increasingly identified as a global ‘problem’ with implications for young people’s mental health and academic attainment, as well as presenting long-term financial and social burdens on the state (Ekstrand, 2015; Pellegrini, 2007). In this chapter we explore how ‘school refusal’ is understood within contemporary discourse, the premises upon which the ‘problem’ rests and the implications for young people’s wellbeing. The use of Carol Bacchi’s (2009) ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ framework enables us to critically examine the taken-for-granted assumptions underpinning the ‘problem’ of ‘school refusal’. The use of the framework helps illuminate the dominance of biomedical explanations, which contribute to diminished and delimiting views of young people and serve to obscure the networks of power (ideological, cultural and social) that underpin school-related distress. This chapter considers new ways to understand young people’s subjective experience of distress and the broader influences shaping contemporary understanding of ‘school refusal’.
