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ADHD en social konstruktion - en diskursanalys om hur ADHD beskrivs och talas om i skolans facktidningar

Edström, Ditte LU (2015) SOPA63 20142
School of Social Work
Abstract
Author: Ditte Edström
Title: ADHD a social construction
- A discourse analysis on how ADHD is described and communicated in professional school journals [translated title]
Supervisor: Anders Lundberg


Five percent of all students in Swedish schools have got an ADHD diagnosis (The National Board of Health and Welfare 2014), which is about two children in each class. In ten years, the diagnosed cases among children and adolescents have increased by 700 percent. The purpose of this study was to highlight how ADHD is described, and thereby socially constructed, in Swedish schools using a discourse analytic approach with a social constructivist perspective. The aim was also to investigate what social impacts these constructions could... (More)
Author: Ditte Edström
Title: ADHD a social construction
- A discourse analysis on how ADHD is described and communicated in professional school journals [translated title]
Supervisor: Anders Lundberg


Five percent of all students in Swedish schools have got an ADHD diagnosis (The National Board of Health and Welfare 2014), which is about two children in each class. In ten years, the diagnosed cases among children and adolescents have increased by 700 percent. The purpose of this study was to highlight how ADHD is described, and thereby socially constructed, in Swedish schools using a discourse analytic approach with a social constructivist perspective. The aim was also to investigate what social impacts these constructions could provide. The empirical data consisted of articles from Lärarnas Nyheter – a website where collected journals from unions representing school-professions are published. The analyzed journals are: Pedagogiska Magasinet, Specialpedagogik, Förskolan and Lärarnas Tidning.
The analytical tools that the discourse analysis was primarily inspired by were the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe. The results showed a medical discourse as being the dominant one when the professionals in the journals were communicating about students with ADHD.
The study also showed that both the medical and pedagogical expertise are critical to how schools are organized, they argue that school requirements in general are too high in relation to the students’ abilities. They also argue that schools do not take into account individual differences in maturity witch in some cases may be the cause of students´ difficulties and attention problems.


Key words: ADHD, school, social constructionism, discourse analysis (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Edström, Ditte LU
supervisor
organization
course
SOPA63 20142
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
discourse analysis, social constructionism, School, ADHD
language
Swedish
id
5159274
date added to LUP
2015-03-23 10:40:40
date last changed
2015-03-23 10:40:40
@misc{5159274,
  abstract     = {{Author: Ditte Edström
Title: ADHD a social construction
- A discourse analysis on how ADHD is described and communicated in professional school journals [translated title]
Supervisor: Anders Lundberg


Five percent of all students in Swedish schools have got an ADHD diagnosis (The National Board of Health and Welfare 2014), which is about two children in each class. In ten years, the diagnosed cases among children and adolescents have increased by 700 percent. The purpose of this study was to highlight how ADHD is described, and thereby socially constructed, in Swedish schools using a discourse analytic approach with a social constructivist perspective. The aim was also to investigate what social impacts these constructions could provide. The empirical data consisted of articles from Lärarnas Nyheter – a website where collected journals from unions representing school-professions are published. The analyzed journals are: Pedagogiska Magasinet, Specialpedagogik, Förskolan and Lärarnas Tidning. 
The analytical tools that the discourse analysis was primarily inspired by were the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe. The results showed a medical discourse as being the dominant one when the professionals in the journals were communicating about students with ADHD. 
The study also showed that both the medical and pedagogical expertise are critical to how schools are organized, they argue that school requirements in general are too high in relation to the students’ abilities. They also argue that schools do not take into account individual differences in maturity witch in some cases may be the cause of students´ difficulties and attention problems. 


Key words: ADHD, school, social constructionism, discourse analysis}},
  author       = {{Edström, Ditte}},
  language     = {{swe}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{ADHD en social konstruktion - en diskursanalys om hur ADHD beskrivs och talas om i skolans facktidningar}},
  year         = {{2015}},
}