Research interests include the production of knowledge on child and youth psychopathology, critical disability studies, youth exclusion and practices of medicalization in schools. This work is engaged in the critical analysis of issues that impact on inclusion in education. Research projects include work with Indigenous young people and education,and the investigation of socio-economic status and place in educational disadvantages. Work on medicalisation involves examination of child and youth psychiatric disorders such as ADHD, depression, behaviour disorders, and the associated diagnostic practices as they impact in education. Current research projects include: Imagining university education: The perspectives of young people impacted by low socio-economic status and disengagement from school (Australian Research Council)
Articles
Neither good nor useful: Looking ad vivum in children's assessments of fat and healthy boides, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Schooling (2012)
Fat bodies are not, fait accompli, bad. Yet in our international research we found overwhelmingly...
Connecting the Dots: Threat assessment, depression and the troubled student, Curriculum Inquiry (2011)
On April 18, 2007, a package containing over twenty digital videos arrived at the NBC...
Mobile asylums: psychopathologisation as a personal, portable psychiatric prison, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education (2010)
Psychopathologisation, broadly understood as processes that lead to the effects of being psychopathologised, can have...
Political acts? toward the recuperation of opinion, Educational Theory (2010)
Encouraging debate on inclusion and equity can meet with awkward silences, particularly across disciplinary boundaries....
The place of immagination in inclusive pedagogy: thinking with Maxine Greene and Hannah Arendt, International Journal of Inclusive Education (2010)
Conceptualising difference is a key task for inclusive pedagogy, and vital to the politics of...
Books
Biopolitics and the Obesity Epidemic: Governing Bodies (with Jan Wright) (2009)
Biopolitics and the ‘Obesity Epidemic’ is the first edited collection of critical perspectives on the...
Diagnosing Disorderly Children: A critique of behaviour disorder discourses (2006)
Based on the author's in-depth research with children diagnosed with behavioural difficulties, this book provides...
Contributions to Books
Disorderly, Youth Studies: Keywords, Connections, Movements (2011)
Over the past thirty years the word disorderly has become increasingly linked to discourses of...
The New Outsiders: ADHD and Disadvantage, (De)Constructing ADHD: Critical guidance for teachers and teacher educators (2010)
Recent research has pointed to the uneven distribution of diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,...
Theorizing Biopedagogies, in J. Wright & V. Harwood (Eds.), Biopolitics and the ''Obesity Epidemic'': governing bodies (2009)
Across a range of contemporary contexts are instructions on bios: how to live, how to...
Taking exception: discourses of exceptionality and the invocation of the 'ideal' (with Nicoli Humphry), In S. Gabel & S. Danforth (Eds.), Disability and the Politics of Education: An International Reader. New York: Peter Lang. (2008)
It has taken a long time for the condition of being positioned as “disabled” to...
Youth Culture, in J. Sears (eds.), Youth, Education and Sexualities : An International Encyclopedia (2005)
Youth culture depicts a form of culture that is distinct from "adult" culture and one...