Political Acts? Toward the recuperation of opinion

Harwood, Valerie (in press) Educational Theory

Encouraging debate on inclusion and equity can meet with awkward silences, particularly across disciplinary boundaries. In Disability Studies, it can be difficult to build dialogue with other disciplines, and within the field of education, this can lead to us working in our own ‘equity’ silos. In this paper I address this concern by drawing on Hannah Arendt’s emphasis on the importance of opinion together with Michel Foucault’s work on truth-telling and critique. Following Arendt's emphasis on opinion and the political, I make the argument that political acts in education require of us to recuperate the importance of opinion and to take account of how truth functions in our contemporary contexts.

The place of imagination in inclusive pedagogy: Thinking with Maxine Greene & Hannah Arendt

Harwood, Valerie (2009) International Journal of Inclusive Education (iFirst, July, 2009)

Conceptualising difference is a key task for inclusive pedagogy, and vital to the politics of inclusion. My purpose in this paper is to consider the place that imagination has in helping us to conceptualise difference, and to argue that imagination has a key part to play in inclusive pedagogy. To do this I draw closely on the work of Maxine Greene and Hannah Arendt. Arendt's work provides a means to conceptualise difference whereby difference is itself at the very heart of what constitutes our humanity. Greene's work on the arts has outlined the value of the imagination, and has argued for the place of the arts in education and pedagogy. What is needed, however, is a careful account of how the imagination is connected to politics. In this paper I take up Greene's call to 'release the imagination' and, drawing on Arendt, develop an account of the relationship between the imagination, thinking, and politics and how this can be used to argue the place of imagination in inclusive pedagogy.

Young people, education and unlawful non-citizenship: Spectral sovereignty and governmentality in Australia

Rasmussen, Mary Lou & Harwood, Valerie (2009) Globalisation, Societies and Education. 7 (1) pp. 5-22

This paper considers Judith Butler's discussion of the intersections between governmentality and sovereign power in Precarious life: the powers of mourning and violence. We consider this interrelationship with a view to considering how this might enable us to expand our understanding of contemporary discourses governing young people within and outside Australia. In particular we focus on the production of groups of young people, such as those classified as 'illegal immigrants' who may be situated outside the frame of 'public good' or the 'private interest'. This enables for a theorisation of the lives of groups of young people who may 'have no definitive prospect for a re-entry into the political fabric of life, even as one's situation is highly, if not fatally, politicized'. It is questionable whether the Foucauldian notion of governmentality gives sufficient account of the lives of these young people whose conduct is effectively considered irrelevant by the State. As educators, it is arguable that we have an ethical imperative to encourage our students to care for themselves, and for others, especially those others whose lives have been 'fatally politicized'.

Representations of autism in Australian print media. Disability and Society

Jones, Sandra & Harwood, Valerie (2009) Disability and Society, 24 (1), pp. 5-18

The mass media provides a frame for discourse around important health issues, and it has been widely demonstrated that the development and reinforcement of stereotypes of minority groups are strongly influenced by the news and entertainment media. An extensive search of academic databases failed to locate any studies which examined the representation of autism in the news media, although there were a number of articles on the media role in the autism and MMR debate. This paper reports on an examination of the extent, and nature, of coverage of 'autism spectrum disorders' in the Australian print media between 1996 and 2005. Key findings include a relatively limited amount of factual information and a dual stereotype of people labeled as having autism as either dangerous and uncontrollable or unloved and poorly treated. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the nature and tone of this coverage of autism and its potential impact on individuals described as 'autistic', their families and carers and the community in general.

The New Outsiders: ADHD and Disadvantage

Harwood, Valerie (in press) in L. Graham (Ed). (De)Constructing ADHD: Critical guidance for teachers and teacher educators. New York: Peter Lang Publishing

Recent research has pointed to the uneven distribution of diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, with disproportionately high numbers in areas marked by poverty. This chapter examines this issue of ADHD and social and economic disadvantage. Drawing on research with youth professionals from some of the most disadvantaged communities in Australia, the chapter puts forward the case that the ADHD phenomenon has highly problematic effects on the lives of children and young people in these communities. The intent is to show how the ADHD phenomenon interacts with disadvantage, and suggest how certain schooling practices that lead to the medicalization of child behavior have significant effects on people living in poverty.

Taking Exception: Discourses of exceptionality and the invocation of the ‘ideal’

Harwood, Valerie & Humphry, Nicoli (2008) in Disability and the politics of education: An international reader, USA: Peter Lang, 371-383

Scrutinizing sexuality and psychopathology: a Foucauldian inspired strategy for qualitative data analysis

Harwood, Valerie & Rasmussen, Mary Lou (2007) International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 20 (1) pp. 31-50.

This article discusses a Foucauldian-inspired strategy applied to the analysis of the production of truths about psychopathology, sexuality and young people. Drawing on an interpretation of Foucault's genealogical tactics, this strategy involves the deployment of four angles of scrutiny: discontinuity, contingency, emergences and subjugated knowledges. The authors discuss how these angles can be drawn on to scrutinize those practices that diagnose young people with behavior disorders—or that make essentialist claims about a young person's sexual identity. Drawing on examples from their own research in education relating to the construction of psychopathology and sexualities, the authors consider how these angles of scrutiny can be applied to critiquing essentializing truths, and thereby inform the task of qualitative data analysis