Chasing Science

Children's Brains, Scientific Inquiries, and Family Labors

Bibliographic Data

ID5337333
AuthorsRayna Rapp (0000-0003-0177-2224, New York University, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume36
Issue5
Pages662-684
Publication date2011-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243910392796
OpenAlexW2121764075
LanguageEN
Citations received32
References cited37

Over the last three decades, an escalating portion of U.S. school children has been classified for special education; those with diagnoses entitled to services now number 15 percent of all public school pupils. At the same time, American scientists have focused increasingly on juvenile brains, studying what one psychiatric epidemiologist labeled ''social incapacities.'' This article reports on the laboratory labors of two scientific groups: neuroscientists who scan children's brains in search of resting state differences according to diagnosis and psychiatric epidemiologists who look to epigenetics to distinguish differential diagnostic populations. The article focuses on the medicalization of childhood differences and the harmonies and discordances between what researchers and parents understand to be at the root of children's learning and social capacities

Developmental psychology · Medicalization · Psychiatry · Social science · Sociology · Child and Adolescent Health · Children's Rights and Participation · Early Childhood Education and Development · Psychology

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