Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Is Now the Most Commonly Diagnosed Childhood

PhD Abstract

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is now the most commonly diagnosed childhood disorder in the United States. Over the last five years it has also emerged as a subject of serious debate in both academic and popular discourses within Australia. Controversy rages over ADHD's origins and best treatment, as well as appropriate institutional response.

The project on which this dissertation is based uses quantitative and qualitative data collected in both Australia and the United States, as well as insights gained in the United Kingdom, to explore the impact of ADHD on student, teacher and parent experiences of secondary school in Australia. In doing so it extends the research of Cooper and Shea (1998), and provides an internationally sensitive sociological perspective of ADHD, becoming the first major Australian sociological study of how the condition impacts on schooling experience.

As one can imagine, when working with students with limited attention span, poor linguistic ability, and often histories of opposition to authority, conventional research methods are not only problematic, but risk further marginalisation. This project uses metaphor and narrative as key components to develop a novel approach to research with this group.

With this sensitivity to the participants in mind, the dissertation also uses these tools as a means to share the student's experiences of schooling. Student collaborative stories form the basis of researcher heuristics for interpretation, upon which poetry is used as a means of reflection. Possible future scenarios are also presented in the narrative form, before an examination of the implications for audiences is presented from a critical perspective.

These components come together around the unfolding metaphor of the work as a tapestry to be viewed closely to appreciate the complexity of the topic, as well as from a distance to appreciate the broader significance of the study. As such it comprises a narrative that offers new insights into the nature of ADHD that have important ramifications for educational practice, as well as offers a different perspective on the relationship between ADHD, education and society. It is a dissertation that is orientated around the belief that ADHD is a unique window into the educational, institutional and social priorities of western society as it enters the next Millennium.

Prosser, B. (1999) "Behaviour Management or Management Behaviour? a sociological analysis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Australian and American secondary schools", unpublished thesis, Flinders University of South Australia