Between psychopathology and inclusion: the challenging collaboration between educational psychologists and child psychiatrists

ABSTRACT

This article reports on a Danish study on interprofessional collaboration between child psychiatrists and educational psychologists concerning children who are categorised as being at risk. Methodologically, the analysis is grounded in qualitative interviews with psychologists. A Foucauldian approach is applied to narratives and experiences that occur within these interviews concerning external collaboration with child psychiatrists. The article is informed by the research tradition that has problematised the significance of psychiatry and diagnoses in the field of special needs education and social pedagogy. We thus enquire into how the rise of diagnostics and medicalisation affects our understanding of children's difficulties. We discuss a paradox that is present in Denmark and other countries. As educational policies emphasise inclusion, the field of schooling experiences a huge rise in children with medical diagnoses. We argue that diagnostic knowledge is itself an insufficient basis for action and must be considered in relation to teachers’ overall training and teachers’ situated professionalism.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive schooling
• collaboration
• diagnosis
• psychopathology
• educational psychology
• child psychiatry
• didactics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Bjørn Hamre is an associate Professor in education at the Institute of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen. He is chair of the Danish section of the Nordic Network on Disability Research (nndr.dk).

Lotte Hedegaard-Sørensen is an associate professor in inclusive and special education at Danish School of Education, Aarhus University.

Søren Langager is an associate professor in inclusive education and social pedagogy at Danish School of Education, Aarhus University.

Notes

1 The Children’s Centre Copenhagen (special area of management) seeks to help evaluate the statements, and when there are examples in which interventions relate to specific special schools or treatment, this is criticized.

2 (DK: ‘ … at nedbringe mistrivsel blandt sårbare og udsatte børn og unge, så færre får behov for en specialiseret indsats og eventuel medicinering’).