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Sickle cell, habitual dys-positions and fragile dispositions: young people with sickle cell at school

  • Hala Evans
    ,
  • Simon Martin Dyson
    ,
  • Karl Atkin
    ,
  • Lorraine A. Culley
    ,
  • Sue Elizabeth Dyson
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Abstract

The experiences of young people living with a sickle cell disorder in schools in England are reported through a thematic analysis of forty interviews, using Bourdieu’s notions of field, capital and habitus. Young people with sickle cell are found to be habitually dys-positioned between the demands of the clinic for health maintenance through self-care and the field of the school, with its emphases on routines, consistent attendance and contextual demands for active and passive pupil behaviour. The tactics or dispositions that young people living with sickle cell can then employ, during strategy and struggle at school, are therefore fragile: they work only contingently, transiently or have the unintended consequences of displacing other valued social relations. The dispositions of the young people with sickle cell are framed by other social struggles: innovations in school procedures merely address aspects of sickle cell in isolation and are not consolidated into comprehensive policies; mothers inform, liaise, negotiate and advocate in support of a child with sickle cell but with limited success. Reactions of teachers and peers to sickle cell have the enduring potential to drain the somatic, cultural and social capital of young people living with sickle cell

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 465-483

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Sociology of Health and Illness (Volume 33, Issue 3)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 01/03/2011

Publication status

Published - 01/03/2011

ISSN

0141-9889

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/250600
  • Scopus: 79952205213

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