Reconceiving barriers for democratic health education in Danish schools: an analysis of institutional rationales

Abstract

Health promotion -and education researchers and practitioners advocate for more democratic approaches to school-based health education, including participatory teaching methods and the promotion of a broad and positive concept of health and health knowledge, including aspects of the German educational concept of bildung. Although Denmark, from where the data of this article are derived, has instituted policies for such approaches, their implementation in practice faces challenges. Adopting a symbolic interactionist analytical framework this paper explores and defines two powerful institutional rationales connected to formal and informal social processes and institutional purposes of schools, namely conservatism and Neoliberalism. It is empirically described and argued how these institutional rationales discourage teachers and students from including a broad and positive concept of health, the element of participation, and the promotion of general knowledge as legitimate elements in health education. This paper thus contains a perspective on health education practice, which, in a new way, contributes to explain the relatively slow progress of democratic approaches to school health education.

The process of student engagement in school health promotion: A scoping review

“…2) Opportunity to re ect and envision concepts of health A strategy identi ed across various school health promotion programs and activities involved the opportunity for children and youth to have space and time to re ect and envision their own concepts of health (8, 13,43,47,49,50,56,63,66,71,74,80). Many of the programs and activities recognized health as a broad concept that is multidimensional, multidisciplinary and a collection of personal, social and environmental connections (8, 13, 19, 47, 56, 60, 63-66, 73, 80).…”

“…Further, being involved in the operations of actioning ideas such as mobilizing resources, or participating in on the ground implementation (58, 70, 71, 79) was essential for students to link vision to change. 5) Alignment of strategies with school focus A distinct tactic employed by programs and activities aiming to actively engage students in an initiative or project related to school health promotion was to strategically embed and/or align their objectives with pre-established practices in the school curriculum (13,49,51,54,56,60,64). For example, this often showed up as embedding health promotion initiatives such as physical health as an ongoing part of different school classes such as math or language arts (54, 56) or attaching a certain health promotion program or project to a pre-developed health class such as Health Education (60, 63).…”

“…Their interest and commitment was found to be either a promoter or deterent to their involvement and was largely linked to their feeling of ownership (18, ). Student's involvement in understanding their own data can heighten the ownership process (49), as well as peer-to-peer support (44,45,48,50,51,69,73,77,79,80,82,86) such as dialogue and collaboration between pupils and student mentoring. In relation to adults, the capacity to be actively involved in engagement practices is a limitation, such as the energy it takes to meaningfully facilitate and support students, as well as the commitment to long-term reform (19,53,58,64).…”

Danish ‘add-in’ school-based health promotion: integrating health in curriculum time

“…The lack of historical and institutional traditions for this kind of holistic health promotion in schools, as well as more recent neo-liberal and neo-conservative (political) forces continue to act as structural barriers for teachers, schools and even students to prioritise health promotion (Danielsen et al, 2017). Part of the explanation is that 'health' often does not represent a core subject and is thus not examinable in some countries, e.g.…”

“…Part of the explanation is that 'health' often does not represent a core subject and is thus not examinable in some countries, e.g. Denmark (Danielsen et al, 2017). Many schools are reducing their provision of health education because it is not a statutory requirement and does not contribute to the academic performance metrics that are increasingly used by governments to manage schools' performance and by parents to select a school for their child (Shepherd et al, 2013, Tancred et al, 2017.…”