Abstract
This article aims to problematize different forms of categorization of subjects in the school, from a historical perspective, comparing the function of the coefficient of intelligence with the function of medicalization performed through psychiatric diagnoses, processes that operate in the sense of the reification fallacy, process through which statistical abstractions are taken as 'real things'. The accuracy of the concept of medicalization has discussed through a brief overview of its conceptual modification over time. In addition, an analysis was made of the entrance of psychology in school and of eugenics studies of intelligence in the early twentieth century, in order to allow a discussion based on the ethical orientation that alerts to the risk of classification systems (intelligence or diagnostics psychiatric disorders) that can induce the subjectivity of the individual. It has concluded that medicalization, like eugenics, presents a focus on the problem individual and on supposedly biological determinants.
Keywords:
Medicalization; intelligence; school psychology