Medicalization and education: a study on the training of pedagogues

Abstract

Concern about the physical and mental health of children, adolescents, young people, adults and the elderly has grown in recent years, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic. This concern has produced academic studies and research; surveys and analyses carried out by national and international organizations; national public policies; and guidelines and action plans for various nations. If, on the one hand, attention and care for issues relating to physical and mental health are important and necessary, on the other, they raise the risk of the medicalization of life, suffering and malaise. Bearing in mind that the school has been a privileged locus for medicalizing discourses and practices, a study was carried out to find out whether the process of medicalization is addressed in the initial training of pedagogues and to investigate the participants' knowledge of the subject. To this end, a questionnaire was administered to 19 (former) students at a federal public university using the Google Forms application. Among the results, the analysis indicates that the subject is still little studied in the course and that there is little clarity in defining and differentiating the terms medicalization, pathologization and medication, and in understanding the causes and consequences of the process.