Adolescent Mental Health and Achievement in the Neoliberal School Environment

This timely volume critically examines the influence of compulsory education and high-pressure school environments on the mental well-being of adolescents, using a participatory approach to encourage a deeper understanding of adolescents' real-life experiences of contemporary learning and achievement in schools. With specific focus on a prominent central London Sixth Form college alongside other educational contexts, this book uses in-depth ethnographic fieldwork to explore the paradox of schooling as synonymous with learning yet also with the associated mental health challenges that stem from this learning environment. Grounded in ethnographic and co-production methodologies, the chapters share the voices of the participants such as students, teachers, parents and college leaders, while also offering a reflexive analysis of their lived experiences in the dual role of contributors and co-researchers. By deconstructing official definitions of mental health and juxtaposing them with the participants' interpretations and lived experiences, this book unravels the consequences of organising education strictly to accord with narrow achievement metrics. Forming an exciting and novel contribution to the growing literature produced in the school ethnography tradition, this book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of education research methods, mental health, education policy and more broadly, the philosophy of education. Parents and undergraduate students may also find the volume of use.

Danilo Di Emidio is a Post Doc Research Associate, Global Public Health Unit/Centre for Public Health and Policy, Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London, UK.

Contents Endorsements Preface Acknowledgements Key Terms and their Implications in Educational Policies Part I: Education and Mental Health - Chapter 1: Introduction: The Quest for Formal Education-and My Quest! - Chapter 2: Problematizing Education and Mental Health: Discourses, Policies, and the Neoliberal Paradigm Part II: Knowledge Co-Production and Early Findings - Chapter 3: Doing Co-Production of Knowledge through Participation and Ethnography in an Educational Setting - Chapter 4: Towards Generating Key Themes and Co-Producing Analysis - Chapter 5: Subject Positions and the Mental Health Spectrum: A Starting Orientation Part III: Making Sense of Adolescent Struggles - Chapter 6: Responsibilisation and Adolescent Mental Health through Motivational Drivers - Chapter 7: Performance and Adolescent Mental Health under Neoliberalism - Chapter 8: Transition and Adolescent Mental Health While Progressing to University and Work Part IV: Managing Uncertainty and Crafting Closure - Chapter 9: Conduct and Resistance as Determinants of Subjectivity and Mental Health - Chapter 10: Conclusion: So! Does Schooling Influence Mental Health? Afterword: Conceptual, Methodological and Practical Implications for Policy Engagement and Transdisciplinary Reach Index