LAUSR

This lecture stimulates new thinking about learning-disorders. Previous research in Israel regarding students with learning-disorders did not analyze the social processes through which students acquire the disability label. Therefore, the scenario of some students seeking the learning-disorder label in order to gain academic advantage has not been discussed in the professional literature within this context. The lecture is based on forty in-depth interviews conducted with self-testified malingering students who, nonetheless, were diagnosed as learning-disordered. Using sociological and narratological frameworks, the lecture discusses the strategies used by the students prior to, and during, their formal diagnoses, in order to influence the diagnosis outcome and convince the diagnosticians that they were genuinely “learning-disordered”. The strategies are divided into three clusters corresponding to the pre-diagnostic, diagnostic, and diagnostic-interview stages. The students’ stories challenge a number of assumptions that are embedded in the educational–academic and medical discourses regarding students with learning-disorders. Moreover, the lecture maps the reasons used by the interviewees in order to justify pretending to be learning-disordered. Prominent among these rationalizations are claims of “equal opportunity”, “objective science”, “lack of choice”, “everybody does it” and “it's a unique situation”, as well as minimizing statements. Finally, the clinical cases described are placed within the current Israeli educational and cultural context characterized by medicalization trends as well as the negative images of “effort” on the one hand, and the meritocratic ethos of “success” on the other. It is suggested that these may shed some light on the ever-growing number Israeli learning-disordered students. Disclosure of interest The author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.