Crianças com “olhar transparente”: representações sociais dos(as) profissionais da escola e das famílias sobre o TDAH — contextos, sentidos e decisões.

Abstract

Developed within the Graduate Program in Education at the State University of Ponta Grossa (PPGE/UEPG), this dissertation sought to understand the social representations that school professionals and families of diagnosed children hold about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), one of the most common psychiatric categories in children in their interactions with schools.ADHD is a widely discussed topic that attracts the interest of science, media, and the public, particularly due to debates surrounding its etiology, assessment, prevalence, and treatment. These aspects can be better understood through the lens of social representations of ADHD, which guide the practices of those involved with the diagnosis (in this study, family and pedagogical approaches to children considered hyperactive and inattentive). Faced with these issues, this dissertation aimed to address the following research question: What do the social representations of school professionals and families of diagnosed children communicate about ADHD, and what are their implications for family and pedagogical approaches? The participants of this study were school professionals and families of children diagnosed with ADHD who were enrolled in the early years of elementary education in public schools in a municipality in Paraná, Brazil. As a research approach, the study is grounded in Social Representation Theory to understand social representations, modes of thought developed and shared through sociocognitive mechanisms, which give meaning to phenomena that affect individuals and collectives, guiding their practices in relation to them. The research also drew on contributions from scholars associated with Critical School Psychology, whose focus on school contexts fosters a critical examination of ADHD diagnoses within health and education, as well as a broader discussion on medicalization, of which ADHD is a part. Data were collected through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews and were organized into thematic categories or meaning clusters. The findings argue that while school professionals represent ADHD as a disorder that affects learning, their primary response is typically referring children for diagnosis and pharmacological treatment. This tendency is rooted in representations anchored in medical discourses widely disseminated by the media and reinforced in professional development courses, which predominantly approach ADHD from a biological perspective. Consequently, school professionals become key agents in advocating for clinical interventions for children with school-related challenges. However, the diagnosis does not necessarily lead to positive changes in family and pedagogical approaches. In some cases, it results in practices that hinder educational processes, as medication does not always translate into improvements in learning. Additionally, behaviors seen as indicative of ADHD may be linked to the contexts experienced by the children rather than solely to medical causes. As a result, schools tend to shift the responsibility for addressing inherent challenges in educational settings to the medical-psychiatric field, while families oscillate between relief and uncertainty regarding the diagnosis.