Teachers With Special Needs. De-Psychiatrization of Children in Schools

Abstract

Psychiatrization not only affects adults. Ever more children in Western countries are being diagnosed with a mental disorder of behavior, such as ADHD. Children may often be labelled with the best intentions, for example in order to be able to provide them with suitable care and guidance. However, this labelling can have exclusionary effects and often entails the consequence that important discussion about contextual factors that give rise to (the perception of) unwelcome behavior or academic underperformance rarely, if at all, takes place. In this article we contend that although children are of central concern to schools and the design of pupils’ education, it is important not to make pupils the sole owner of problems that arise. It is therefore high time that a far more critical normative stance towards inclusive education is taken, in which the presently widespread biomedical approach is met with a school community response that focuses not on the nature of individual disorders but on the special need for additional capacity that schools and teachers have in meeting (perceived) deviant behaviors and emotions and/or academic underperformance. We argue that teaching should not set out to remedy individual diagnoses, but that teachers should be supported to extend their professional competence to the benefit of all pupils.

Van kinderen naar leerkrachten met speciale onderwijsbehoeften

“…Binnen het individuele biomedische model wordt het verschil in onderwijsbehoeften gezocht in specifieke beperkingen, handicaps of stoornissen van individuele leerlingen: het kind wijkt af van andere kinderen, kan niet op de gewone manier leren, en heeft speciale ondersteuning of hulpverleners nodig. Er is in dit model een kloof tussen hoe sommige kinderen zijn en wat school van hen verwacht, en specialisten-zoals psychiaters of remedial teachers-kunnen deze kloof dichten (Batstra et al, 2021). Het sociale model daarentegen is gericht op de onderwijscontext en op leerkrachten goed voorbereiden, investeren in voldoende middelen en ruimte scheppen binnen het curriculum (Wienen, 2019) barrières voor de deelname aan regulier onderwijs te verwijderen (Allan, 1999).…”

“…Wanneer het gaat om Passend en Inclusief Onderwijs wordt veelal gesproken van 'kinderen met speciale onderwijsbehoeften' (children with special educational needs). Om een onderwijsomgeving te realiseren die ten eerste passend is voor ieder kind en ten tweede aantrekkelijk voor de leerkracht, is het ons inziens beter om voortaan te spreken (en denken en handelen) in termen van leerkrachten met speciale onderwijsbehoeften (teachers with special needs) (Batstra, Van Roy, & Thoutenhoofd, 2021). Om deze gedachtegang toe te lichten beschrijven we eerst de relatie tussen Passend en Inclusief Onderwijs en de verschillende uitwerkingen van inclusief onderwijs die in Nederland successievelijk in de praktijk gebracht zijn.…”

Does Using Core Quadrants Lead to More Teacher Self-Efficacy and Less Perceived Problem Behaviour?

“…Diagnostic rates of mental disorders in children have been on the rise in recent years across Western countries (Batstra et al, 2021;Olfson et al, 2014). At the time of writing, an estimated one in eight children meet the criteria for a mental disorder (Barican et al, 2021).…”

“…While no biological or genetic markers are found for any mental disorder (Frisch, 2016;Scull, 2021), the biomedical, disorder-based framing of mental health problems as brain defects predominates in public information, including in study books (Te Meerman, 2019), information books aimed at children (Batstra et al, 2020), public science communication (Gonon et al, 2011), and the media (Ponnou et al, 2020). The biomedical perspective also greatly influences educational settings (Batstra et al, 2021) were issues concerning both behaviour and learning often initially arise, and where there are fast routes in place to psychiatric investigation (Russell et al, 2016;Sax & Kautz, 2003;Wienen et al, 2019). International monitoring data have pointed to teachers reporting high levels of stress due to disruptive classroom behaviours, although variation is noted by country and by teachers' age: young teachers find maintaining order more challenging, while older teachers sooner report workload as a stress factor (OECD, 2020).…”

“…Although not developed for that purpose, the model might contribute to demedicalisation in schools by shifting the focus from problems within the child towards problems in the interaction and specifically, unfortunate combinations of teacher and pupil characteristics. In line with social as opposed to medical models of disability (Oliver, 2013), core quadrants may stimulate teachers to work more from the standpoint that children are not disabled by their challenging characteristics, but by barriers they face in contexts that do not give room to diversity (Batstra et al, 2021). The core quadrant approach is a product entirely of and for practice, and is neither theorised, nor has it so far been linked to a framing theory.…”