A medicalização na infância e juventude como estratégia de controle biopolítico : análise do discurso escolar em Santa Cruz do Sul/RS.

Abstract

Meeting daily experiences and discomforts of working at CAPSia – Psychosocial Care Center for Children and Adolescents (service for people who are suffering or with a mental disorder and with needs arising from the use of alcohol and other drugs), this work sought to investigate a possible naturalization regarding medicalization of children and young people, edging between health and education, in Santa Cruz do Sul/RS, questioning the discourse produced by the school using the biopolitics concept by Michel Foucault. It is understood that a reductionist vision is taking place, which often seeks to explain social issues from individual perspectives, blaming the subject, as well as the use of psychotropic drugs and specialized care to control and frame behavior, maintaining a pre-established social order. The methodology used was Michel Foucault's discourse analysis. Thus, qualitative research was developed, based on document analysis, bibliographic review, and electronic questionnaires (Google Forms) that were sent to teachers working in private and/or public schools; in Basic Education, in Elementary and/or High Schools in this city. Through schools, repeatedly students are referred to health units in search of referrals to CAPSia, for countless reasons regarding the search for more attention and productivity. There is no critical understanding about the medicalization process, nor about mental suffering or about what CAPSia is, and its attention focus. There is no place for difference and uniqueness in schools. Children and young people medicalization is an example of normalization, where those who do not fit the standards or do not qualify as capable students-subjects are referred to specialized care and/or services, so that they receive the necessary treatment, aiming to train, control, achieve standard and utility within the model determined by society