Constructing a Crisis: Mental Health, Higher Education and Policy Entrepreneurs

Abstract

In 2018, the UK Conservative government issued a ‘non-negotiable’ instruction for universities to make ‘positive mental health’ a strategic priority. This was responding to growing pressure from a variety of stakeholders including mental health organisations, student groups and higher education (HE) management who claimed a worsening crisis of student mental health in the UK. We conducted a qualitative media analysis (QMA) of public discussions of student mental health as a social problem in a sample of (a) newspapers and (b) policy documents produced in the UK between 2010 and 2019 using a contextual constructionist approach and Kingdon’s policy streams framework. It identifies expansive definitions of mental illness, assumptions that precede evidence-gathering, ‘professional exes’ as policy entrepreneurs, and solutions that spread risk across institutions. We conclude by discussing the shift away from autonomous subjectivity towards more heteronomous constructions. In so doing it provides an important contribution to sociological understandings of contemporary subjectivity and social policy regarding mental health in HE.