Masking as relational labour: A systemic analysis of subjectivity and hidden distress in educational contexts

Masking is often conceptualised as an individual coping strategy, particularly within neurodevelopmental literature. This study reconceptualises masking as a relationally situated and systemically produced form of labour within educational contexts. While commonly examined in relation to autism, masking is understood here as a more general feature of participation within institutional environments, reflecting the regulation of behaviour and self-presentation in response to normative expectations. Drawing on practitioner-generated consultation data analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, the study examines how children’s apparent “coping” is co-constructed through interactions between child, adult, and institutional context. Across cases, masking emerged as sustained regulatory effort directed toward maintaining participation, preserving relational equilibrium, and negotiating the presentation of self, often at significant internal cost. This labour remained largely unrecognised within school contexts, contributing to the misinterpretation of distress, delayed support, and trajectories of exhaustion, burnout, and withdrawal. The findings extend existing understandings of masking by situating it within systemic processes of recognition, expectation, and response, and highlight the relational conditions under which participation becomes both possible and unsustainable. Implications are considered for how educational systems constitute behaviour, recognise need, and conceptualise inclusion.