Good Kids, mad Schools

Abstract

The western world has long viewed ‘mental illness’ from a biomedical perspective; treating the brain the same way it treats physical issues, through diagnosis, medication and clinical intervention. We however tend to forget that a person is interdependent on her or his environment, and resultantly we frame the person as ill or weak rather than the environment as sick, or ‘mad’. With this thesis I assess how mental health and ‘mental illness’ are being framed within secondary schools in the province of Ontario (Canada). I achieve this by analyzing mental health strategies using a theoretical lens developed from Critical Disability Theory and Mad Studies. Through use of a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) I analyzed a total of 4 mental health strategies from the federal government, the Ontario government and 2 Ontario school boards. My findings indicated that these mental health strategies generally subscribe to a medical or individualized understandings of mental health, and overlook the disabling influence that the school environment can have on the student. By minimizing the role of the social and physical environment on student mental health schools are reinforcing the dominant discourse, which is that distresses in mental health are the result of an individual deficit caused by a brain defect or personal weakness. This discourse has far reaching consequences that may contribute to many Ontario students not receiving the support they desire. I contend that social workers employed by school boards can be influential in challenging these dominant framings of mental health and carry forward the standpoint that the school environment and its social structures play a principal role in the mental health of students.