1st Edition
Adolescent Mental Health and Achievement in the Neoliberal School Environment Coproducing Knowledge with Students as Stakeholders
This timely volume critically examines the influence of compulsory education and high-pressure school environments on the mental well-being of adolescents, using a participatory approach to encourage a deeper understanding of adolescents’ real-life experiences of contemporary learning and achievement in schools.
With specific focus on a prominent central London Sixth Form college alongside other educational contexts, this book uses in-depth ethnographic fieldwork to explore the paradox of schooling as synonymous with learning yet also with the associated mental health challenges that stem from this learning environment. Grounded in ethnographic and co-production methodologies, the chapters share the voices of the participants such as students, teachers, parents and college leaders, while also offering a reflexive analysis of their lived experiences in the dual role of contributors and co-researchers. By deconstructing official definitions of mental health and juxtaposing them with the participants' interpretations and lived experiences, this book unravels the consequences of organising education strictly to accord with narrow achievement metrics.
Forming an exciting and novel contribution to the growing literature produced in the school ethnography tradition, this book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of education research methods, mental health, education policy and more broadly, the philosophy of education. Parents and undergraduate students may also find the volume of use.
Contents
Endorsements
Preface
Acknowledgements
Key Terms and their Implications in Educational Policies
Part I: Education and Mental Health
- Chapter 1: Introduction: The Quest for Formal Education—and My Quest!
- Chapter 2: Problematizing Education and Mental Health: Discourses, Policies, and the Neoliberal Paradigm
Part II: Knowledge Co-Production and Early Findings
- Chapter 3: Doing Co-Production of Knowledge through Participation and Ethnography in an Educational Setting
- Chapter 4: Towards Generating Key Themes and Co-Producing Analysis
- Chapter 5: Subject Positions and the Mental Health Spectrum: A Starting Orientation
Part III: Making Sense of Adolescent Struggles
- Chapter 6: Responsibilisation and Adolescent Mental Health through Motivational Drivers
- Chapter 7: Performance and Adolescent Mental Health under Neoliberalism
- Chapter 8: Transition and Adolescent Mental Health While Progressing to University and Work
Part IV: Managing Uncertainty and Crafting Closure
- Chapter 9: Conduct and Resistance as Determinants of Subjectivity and Mental Health
- Chapter 10: Conclusion: So! Does Schooling Influence Mental Health?
Afterword: Conceptual, Methodological and Practical Implications for Policy Engagement and Transdisciplinary Reach
Index
Biography
Danilo Di Emidio is a Post Doc Research Associate, Global Public Health Unit/Centre for Public Health and Policy, Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London, UK.
'This important book engages with a vital, and too-often neglected area of education, the deteriorating mental health of our young people. Offering a re-imagining of schooling, it demonstrates the possibilities for a different, caring and democratic educational system where all young people can flourish.'
- Prof Diane Reay, Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge
'This is a book every English parent should read before sending their children to school. Our school students are highly anxious and stressed. Using a careful and rich mix of participatory research, ethnography and social theory the book unpicks the causes of the rising incidence of mental health problems in schools. The unrelenting pressure of performance indicators central to government policy has dire consequences for the mental health of our school students. This book is provocative, shocking and important.'
- Prof Stephen J Ball, Emeritus Professor of Sociology of Education at UCL, Institute of Education
'This book offers a compelling and forensic critique of the ways in which England’s neoliberal education system impacts adolescent mental health. Grounded in participatory and empirical research and informed by Foucauldian theory, Di Emidio expertly exposes the damaging contradictions that lie at the heart of government education policy and the complex and chilling way in which this influences young people’s mental health.'
- Dr Bronwen MA Jones, Lecturer in Sociology at UCL, Institute of Education
'Danilo Di Emidio offers a razor-sharp, creative and powerful critique of neoliberal policy and its implications for adolescent mental health. This book is at the cutting edge of Foucauldian theory and will be essential reading for anyone interested in the ‘therapeutic turn’ in education.'
- Dr Patrick Bailey, University College London, IOE - Education, Practice & Society
