[Health and school: thoughts on the medicalization of education]

Children and youth reach school with different starting points. It is not known for sure how far these children and youth will go, and what path the school holds for them, particularly at a stage in which teachers are divided in multi-tasking (with some tasks that are merely administrative). Meanwhile, it is increasingly common to explain students' "inappropriate" behavior in biomedical terms. The increasing emergence of disorders and deficits calls for critical reflection on what they actually involve in public health terms. Thisarticle addresses the school's role in the educational achievement and comprehensive development of students flagged for or with clinical indication of medication based on "fuzzy" diagnoses. The concept of medicalization acquires a central position, and the article discusses its implications based on a set of field notes and interviews with parents and teachers in the North of Portugal.