This paper addresses some of the contradictions, dilemmas and struggles in a Danish primary school practice involved in medicating children diagnosed with ADHD. It draws on a social practice research study of a 7 year-old boy diagnosed with ADHD, who was medicated against his will. It focuses on his struggles when being medicated, and particularly on meaning making processes and changes in social self-understandings in the first grade class, 1B, generated among students, teachers and parents. The paper is an analysis of moments and movements in Dennis' social self-understanding generated as part of a social practice research project combining a variety of methods, ranging from collective biography inspired group work and qualitative interviews with teachers and students, photo-based interviews, and participant observation in the school. The study has a double aim of generating theory regarding social self-understanding and ADHD medication, and analysing concrete contradictions, dilemmas and action possibilities in a primary school, enabling new 'practice recognitions' that (at least partly) move beyond practices that generate marginalized social self-understandings.
Vignette: Dennis's storyFirst grade B (1B) has Danish on the schedule. The Danish teacher, Heather, is out getting something, and the researcher and 'school psychologist' Karen-Lis Kristensen (KL) 1 uses the waiting time to talk with the children. KL asks how it is to be in school in 1B. Dennis raises his hand and says: "I would like to die." KL asks him why he would like to die and he answers: "so I don't have to go to school." This remark disturbs the other children. They ask: "Does he really want to die?", "In what ways?", "Does he want to commit suicide?"Two days later, KL is interviewing Dennis about photos he has taken in class, and again Dennis repeats that he would rather die than go to school, because when he goes to school he has to take medicine. KL asks him why he doesn't like to take medicine, and Dennis tells her that when he is home with his father, he doesn't take his medicine. Then he doesn't have to behave "differently" and he can "relax."Immediately after this interview, at 10 o'clock in the morning, it is time for Dennis to take his medicine. It is the school pedagogue Katie, who is supposed to give it to Dennis. But Dennis refuses to put it in his mouth. When KL gets to the hallway outside the classroom, Dennis is lying flat on the floor, tense in his whole body, without contact with Katie who sits bent over him. Katie is upset and scared. She tells KL that Dennis is saying strange things and insists on not swallowing his pill. KL suggests to Katie, that they should not force the medication on Dennis. When Dennis hears this, he jumps up from the floor and walks into the classroom, and sits still on his chair.After this incident, KL contacts the parents and arranges a meeting with them. The meeting takes place 10 days later with only Dennis's mother participating. Her immediate explanation, when she hears that Dennis says that he w...