University of BristolUniversity of Bristol

State Control of Children’s Bodies Through Discourses of State Control of Children’s Bodies Through Discourses of

Wellbeing: conflicting ideologies of well, being and becoming for Wellbeing: conflicting ideologies of well, being and becoming for

children and young peoplechildren and young people

Dr. Debbie WatsonDr. Debbie Watson

Debbie.watson@bristol.ac.ukDebbie.watson@bristol.ac.uk

Proliferation of wellbeing

• UNICEF report on wellbeing in rich countries- UK

came bottom of rankings (UNICEF, 2007);

• Good Childhood Inquiry (Children’s society, 2009);

• Concerns about demise of childhood (Palmer,2007;

Layard & Dunn, 2009);

• ECM agenda in England and Wales (DfES, 2004);

• Emotional learning programmes (SEAL- DfES, 2005).

• Wellbeing is used in all contexts but not defined.

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Origins of the concept

• Ancient origins/ philosophical basis:

Parfit (1984) suggested three concepts of wellbeing:

a. Hedonism- pleasure/ pain/ happiness;

b. Desire-fulfilment/ Eudaimonic- achieving desire preference and living in accordance with ones self;

c. Objective List Theories- achieving those needs/ capabilities that others have determined are important for a good life e.g QOL theories.

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Wellbeing is poorly defined for children

• Discourse analysis of wellbeing raises a number of

questions (Ereaut & Whiting, 2008):– What is the binary opposite? Ill-being? (non word);– Well and being are two words- hard to fix a meaning

for the signified when two signifiers involved;– Why wellbeing and not welfare/ well-living/ well-

feeling?– How to spell wellbeing?– Focus is on wellness- opposite ill/ unwell

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Discourses of wellbeing (Ereaut & Whiting, 2008)

• Medicalised;

• Operationalised e.g. ECM outcomes define

wellbeing so it does not need to be problematised

or challenged;

• Sustainability discourse;

• Discourse of holism;

• Philosophical discourse.

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Writing about QOL theories:

• ‘what is essential is that these are theories

according to which an assessment of a person's

well-being involves a substantive judgment about

what things make life better, a judgment which may

conflict with that of the person whose well-being is

in question’ (Scanlon, 1993) (p.188).

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Open to paternalism?

• ‘Children may require enforced protection of and

stimulation of their capabilities, for example

through compulsory education’ – (Gough, 2002:16).

• Who decides what is good for children? What say

do they have?

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Childhood is contested

• Becoming- e.g. Adults in the making?

• Being- social agents in their own right?

• Being & Becoming simultaneously? – What judgment?- Competence? Development? Growth? (e.g.

Lee, 2002) – Epistemological component (child being a child) and ontological

component (ageing body of the child) (Uprichard, 2008)– Where do we focus on both concepts of childhood in respect of

wellbeing? – Tendency to dissociate concepts (Cartesian dualist thinking)

focus on mental/ physical health- but is this wellbeing?

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The Being in wellbeing

• Bodies are highly complex and contested sites. One

theory suggests that we occupy 3 bodies:– The individual body as phenomenologically

understood;– The social body ‘referring to the representational

uses of the body as a natural symbol with which to think about nature, society and culture’, and;

– The body politic ‘referring to the regulation, surveillance, and control of bodies (individual and collective)’ (Scheper-Hughes and Lock, 1987) (pp.7-8).

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Well bodies?

• Individual- In respect of wellbeing this suggests that we search for individualised accounts of children’s wellness and locate these in medicalised corporeal explanations;

• Social- there is a direct correlation mapped between a healthy body and a healthy society and children’s health and wellbeing are used as indicators for the wellbeing of society in general- connection between body and the external world;

• Body politic- The body politic is experienced and exerted on individuals in many ways and these are subject to other social forces such as gender. The epidemic in eating disorders amongst young girls and women may be a testament to the dual expectations on them to be both Hedonistic and remain slim, fit and composed.

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The complexity of human bodies

• ‘The individual body should be seen as the most

immediate, the proximate terrain where social

truths and social contradictions are played out, as

well as a locus of personal and social resistance,

creativity and struggle’ (Scheper-Hughes & Lock,

1987, p.31).

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State control of children’s bodies?

• National child measurement programme (2010)

• Reporting of children’s weight to parents/ carers

• What role are schools playing?

• ‘docile bodies’? (Foucault, 1991)– ‘Discipline increases the forces of the body (in

economic terms of utility) and diminishes these same forces (in political terms of obedience)’ (138).

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Behaviour control?

• ADHD and use of drug treatment;

• Under the guise of ‘wellbeing’ clinicians have detrimentally affected the wellbeing of children (Traxson, 2010);

• Behaviour that falls outside ‘normal’ range (evidence to suggest the range has shifted)

• 60-fold increase in Ritalin use with children in UK in 10 years to 2004;

• Established side effects of increased anxiety, damage to working memory and even onset of Parkinson’s disease (Higgins, 2009).

• Individual/ somatic level treatment with little question of implications;

• Societal intolerance of difference?

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The Happy child?

• Absence of age-appropriate measurements for children’s emotions results in inappropriate labelling of children as depressed/ unhappy/ suffering mental disorders;

– ‘potential for a profound intrusion into our children’s emotional lives using diagnostic labelling that is of questionable validity’

– (Horwitz & Wakefield, 2007: 163).

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National Wellbeing programmes

• SEAL programme- delivered in 90% primary’s/ 70%

secondary’s in England;

• Regularly encourages the explicit sharing of

emotions where ‘feelings are to be regulated and

schooled’ (Craig, 2009: 12)

• Inherently female bias in SEAL;

• Allowed a psychological and mental health

perspective on wellbeing to predominate the

discourse in schools (Craig, 2009)

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Therapeutic ethos?

• Should children not be allowed to experience negative emotions as well as positive ones?

• Surely we need to help them build resilience to failure/ upset?

• Are we presuming a fragility and vulnerability amongst children? (Ecclestone & Hayes, 2009)- Is this not very paternalistic and protectionist?

• Should a focus be on individual self-esteem? Can result in ‘unhealthy materialism and individualism and so undermines rather than contributes to wellbeing’ (Crocker & Park, 2004).

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Lack of evidence base? (Humphreys et al, 2010 national evaluation of SEAL)

• SEAL failed to have a positive impact in schools;• Analysis of school climate scores indicated significant

reductions in pupils’ trust and respect for teachers, liking for school, and feelings of classroom and school supportiveness during SEAL implementation. Additionally, qualitative data around perceptions of impact indicated a feeling that SEAL had not produced the expected changes across schools.

• However, school climate data also showed a significant increase in pupils’ feelings of autonomy and influence, and this was supplemented by anecdotal examples of positive changes in general outcomes (e.g. reductions in exclusion), as well as more specific improvements in behaviour, interpersonal skills and relationships.

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What focus on children’s bodies is revealed?

• They can be controlled at an individual level- what they consume, how they behave and how their happiness is judged;

• Open to scrutiny and measurement and normalised;• Focus on individual bodies driven by body politic• What place for the social (collective?) body in

wellbeing agendas? Other than as a ‘thermometer’?• Operationalised and medical discourses

predominate

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The ‘Being child’ can be ‘fixed’

• A ‘Being’ discourse allows us to fix and normalise patterns of being child;

• Becoming discourse presumes children are deficient when regarded against adults.

• Need to take both discourses together to understand multi-faceted nature of childhood and wellbeing.

• Goodley (2007) asserts that we are all in a state of ‘becoming’ where,

– ‘becoming challenges the marketized product of being’ (325).

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The ‘Becoming’ child (Goodley, 2007, drawn from Deleuze & Guattari, 1987)

• Rhizomatic ideas challenge ‘being’ as a singular and individualised experience & focuses on a multiplicity of experiences based upon the social body- which connects people and the world;

• A becoming view equates to hedonistic/ desire theories (Eudaimonic);

• ‘Desiring’ requires that the membership of the community (children?) define their own membership and the ‘good’ emerges as a subjective/ interpretive process.

• Requires development of methods for accessing children’s accounts of well living in all contexts.

• Not acceptable to exert our definition of the ‘good’ on children in OLTs that can be operationalised and measured.

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References 1

• CRAIG, C. (2009) Well-being in schools: the curious case of the tail wagging the dog? , Centre for Confidence and Well-being.

• DELEUZE, G. & GUATTARI, F. (2004) A thousand plateaus- capitalism and schizophrenia, Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.

• DFES (2004) Every child matters: change for children. London, UK, Crown Copyright.

• DFES (2005) Social and emotional aspects of learning. Crown Copyright

• ECCLESTONE, K. & HAYES, D. (2009) Changing the subject: the educational implications of developing well-being. Oxford Review of Education, 35, 371-389.

• EREAUT, G. & WHITING, R. (2008) What do we mean by 'wellbeing'? And why might it matter? London, DCSF.

• FOUCAULT, M. (1991) Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison, London, Penguin Books.

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Refs 2• GOODLEY, D. (2007) Towards Socially Just Pedagogies: Deleuzeoguattarian

critical disability studies. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 11, 317- 334.

• GOUGH, I. (2002) Lists and thresholds: comparing our theory of human need with Nussbaum's capabilities approach. Promoting women's capabilities: examining Nussbaum's capabilities approach. St Edmund's College, Cambridge.

• HUMPHREY, N., LENDRUM, A. & WIGELSWORTH, M. (2010) Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) programme in secondary schools: national evaluation. Manchester, University of Manchester.

• HIGGINS, E. S. (2009) Do ADHD drugs take a toll on the brain? Scientific American Mind, 20, 38-43.

• HORWITZ, A. & WAKEFIELD, J. C. (2007) The Loss of Sadness: how psychiatry transformed normal sorrow into a depressive disorder, New York, Oxford University Press.

• LAYARD, R. & DUNN, J. (2009) A Good Childhood: searching for values in a competitive age, Harmondsworth, Penguin.

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Refs 3

• LEE, N. (2002) Childhood and Society: Growing Up in an Age of Uncertainty, Buckingham, Open University Press.

• PALMER, S. (2007) Toxic childhood: how the modern world is damaging our children and what we can do about it, Orion.

• PARFIT, D. (1984) Reasons and Persons, Oxford, Clarendon Press.

• SCANLON, T. (1993) Value, desire and quality of life. IN NUSSBAUM, M. & SEN, A. (Eds.) The Quality of Life. Oxford, Clarendon Press.

• SCHEPER-HUGHES, N. & LOCK, M. L. (1987) The Mindful Body: A prolegomen to future work in medical anthropology. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 1, 6-41.

• TRAXSON, D. (2010) The Medicalisation of Childhood. Every Child Journal, 1, 36-40.

• UNICEF (2007) Child Poverty in Perspective: an overview of child well-being in rich countries. Innocenti report card 7.

• UPRICHARD, E. (2008) Children as 'Beings and Becomings: children, childhood and temporality. Children & Society, 22, 303-313.

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