Degree
Master of Arts
Program
Anthropology
Supervisor
Kim Clark
Abstract
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has come to be a way of being a person. In practical activities, concepts from various scientific paradigms come to be embodied. The categorical, yet historically transient, 'reality' of ADHD emerges from people's use of the classification to organize experiences of the behaviours, emotions and drugs associated with the category. This thesis explores how a group of teachers and principals from Sarnia, Ontario make sense of their role in the medicalization of childhood behaviours in relation to the classification ADHD. Previous studies have examined the perspectives of patients, parents, and physicians regarding ADHD, but despite depictions of teachers’ role in identifying ADHD in their students, there is a relative lack of studies of teachers’ practices and their perceptions of their role. ADHD is produced as people appeal to the classification in the practice of everyday life; this thesis explores how this occurs among schoolteachers in Sarnia.
Recommended Citation
Galler, Patrick, "Teaching Restless Bodies: Teachers’ Negotiations of ADHD in Sarnia, Ontario" (2015). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 2843.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/2843