Nate's explication of a Fouclaultian gaze reflects the meaning of the term
as used in the paper on Hyper Talk. Renee's comments on the relationship of
Medical Discourse to what Scot and I called Everyday and School Discourses
in the paper, is significant beause the arrangement is both necessary and
problemmatic. If I take you to mean x by this language game, then I respond
based on a belief that x is a good or bad thing.
Scot and I are currently doing an extended case study on a junior high
student who was recommended through teachers to medical experts but who
ultimately chose to respond to an ADD diagnosis by refusing the medication.
We are interested in how all the shareholders thought about the issues; how
they constructed meanings around their own personal experiences with ADHD,
etc. So far we have found that the teachers (in a suburban affluent
setting) think quite complexly about the issues; however, they look to the
teachers who have had their own children diagnosed with ADD or ADHD for
leadership in formulating ways to think about how they will respond to the
behaviors of a given student. They recognize the tension between theory and
practice, between diagnosis and real lives.
Some teachers attribute the increase in diagnosis to an over-stimulating
environment. Others talk about the huge pressures today to succeed in
school. They mentioned the change from a vocabulary of "dumb" and "bad" to
the present extensive lexicon of labels. The "good news" in their eyes is
that because so many children get pulled out for this or that, the stigma of
being labeled in a category is diminishing since it is becoming more
normative.
Virginia
Virginia Navarro, Ph.D.
University of Missouri, St. Louis
8001 Natural Bridge Road
St. Louis, MO 63121
(314) 516-5871
Virginia_Navarro@umsl.edu <mailto:Virginia_Navarro@umsl.edu>
FAX: (314) 516-5784
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 23 2000 - 09:20:38 PDT