Project Head Start: Denaturalizing Health Discourse in Working with “Disadvantaged Children”
Abstract
Using Project Head Start as an example, this article argues that “health” is not a neutral notion; the good intention of changing “health” disparities could reinforce structural inequality. Firstly, this article reviews the dominant mode of Head Start studies on health, the research for health. Secondly, this article denaturalizes health discourse by sketching three layers of theorization of “health” and their implication for education: the opposite of diseases, the mechanics of normal and pathological, and the discipline of daily life. Building on this, this article explores the possibility of an emerging territory of Head Start studies, that is, the research of health. Through the lens of biopower, this research directs the question from “What is health” to the focus on the subjectivity, power circulation, and knowledge production of health practice. This article contributes theoretically and methodologically by denaturalizing health discourses to reimage the practice of working with “disadvantaged children.”
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