This paper aims at reflecting about the process of pathologization of education through the case study of a girl diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The results show that the discourses that are established around the student considered as hyperactive/inattentive end up compromising her subjectivity and learning, once she starts to internalize part of the perceptions of her living group. Based on the postulates of Vygotsky (1984), that cognitive functions are formed in the presence of intersubjectivity, and of Bakhtin (2006), according to whom we construct our self-image amid the gaze of the other, we are led to conclude that the child is not born ADHD, but may show signs of inattention/hyperactivity depending on the quality of the social interactions he takes part in.
ADHD; pathologization of education; subjectivity; learning