2013 - Sociological Perspectives on ADHD - Oxford Annotated Bilibographies.pdf (original) (raw)

A sociological approach to ADHD begins from the position that social and historical contexts matter deeply in the ways that ADHD is understood, experienced and managed. Thus, for example, intra-professional or parent-teacher discord over the correct way to deal with symptoms, shifts in economies and educational systems that provide services to families and children, gendered stereotypes and processes of racialization, or ways of framing children as risky to others or at-risk to themselves, are important aspects of how ADHD exists in the social world. ADHD is, sociologically speaking, a very interesting and important problem in great part because these social and historical aspects of ADHD continue to trouble medical and educational approaches to diagnosis and treatment. Diagnostic rates of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have burgeoned over the past decades, beginning in the United States in the 1970’s and 1980’s, then moving primarily into other developed countries in subsequent decades.. Despite much public debate, ADHD has been enormously ‘successful’ as a diagnostic category. Similarly, rates of treating ADHD-identified children with stimulant drugs have risen in much of the developed world, although diagnostic rates vary considerably both within and between countries. Some of the controversies underpinning the ADHD debates can be seen in sections on *Diagnostic Uncertainty* , * Nevertheless, ongoing and highly public debates persist concerning the diagnosis and medical treatment of ADHD. Researchers and lay writers have argued, for example, that children with ADHD symptoms who go untreated are at risk for adult depression, heightened rates of addiction and criminality, and increased school dropout rates. On the other hand, the risks for children who do receive a diagnosis have been argued to include stigmatization as a result of being labeled with a mental health condition and dependencies on medication in both the short and the longer term for children whose treatment is typically psychopharmaceutical ather than behavioural. Some writers have argued that while ADHD may be a legitimate medical or psychological condition, medication is not the most appropriate response to its treatment, and classroom interventions should be the first, and perhaps the primary, response to children’s challenges, particularly iwhen those challenges are experienced mainly in the classroom. Within this contested terrain, parents, children, educators and helping professionals must make critical decisions about how to best respond to and assist children who are identified as problematic. It is our hope that the following bibliography may help inform such decision-making positively.