Session Information
08 SES 08 B, Research on Health, Wellbeing and Equity and its Implications for Health Education Research and Practice
Paper Session
Contribution
An important feature of contemporary welfare state management is urban health education that includes alliances and partnerships for developing public health policies and practices that positively impact on the health of people. Health promotion in the traditional sense of the word has been replaced by new managerial institutions and new cross-professional partnerships (Pollit 2002; Christensen & Lægreid 2007). For children and young people, this managerial revolution (Kettl, 2005) has meant new roles. The premises for their inclusion into health promotion have changed. The paper investigates role expectations in relation to urban strategies of health education and promotion.
The objective is to search for different role modalities of present health semantics aimed at children and young people. The relations between health semantics, citizen roles, and educational inclusion/exclusion are central. In order to look at health semantics at the one hand in terms of making certain roles become popular (in order for children and young people to become interested in wearing the roles and by wearing the roles becoming recognisable and communicative, that is becoming includable and included), and on the other hand as a semantic preparation for participation in behavioural activities such as co-decision making, different preventive initiatives are analysed.
The theoretical framework combines elements from system theory (Luhmann, 1995a), pedagogical studies and health education theory in order to grasp different semantic modalities of inclusion of children and young people. In a system theoretical perspective, which is the main approach so far, the matter of inclusion becomes a question of both the communication about people as certain role bearers and a question of the ways people as persons react towards generalised role communications (Luhmann 1995b; Stichweh 2005; Stäheli 2007). Taken together, the theoretical perspectives point towards an analytical tool for empirically investigations into present health promoting and preventive societies. Hence, our studies show the ways in which risk communication is involved in the strategies as well as in health educational practises. The conclusion of the project is that a new kind of identity – “the risky child” is attributed to the children as they are involved. Being confronted with different risks of childhood coming for example from eating fatty food, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes or having sexual relationships, the children are brought into a moral, political and lifestyle oriented discourse on risks. In this discourse their identity (as children or adolescents) is at stake as they are expected to participate as well-experienced information consumers. They are expected to be rational, qualified, and future oriented participants. Often the health promotion information concerns a distant future in which the children risk invisible threats.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Christensen, T. & Lægreid, P. (2007). Transcending New Public Management. Aldershot: Ashgate. Højlund, Holger (2006): Den frit vælgende ældre¸ Dansk sociologi, nr. 1. 17. årg.: 41-66 [in Danish] Højlund, H. (2008): Hybrid Inclusion – Multiple inclusion mechanisms in the modernised organisation of Danish welfare services, Journal of European Social Policy (submitted). Kettl, D. F. (2005): The Global Public Management Revolution. Washington: D. C. Brookings. Kruse, S. & Wistoft, K. (2008). Complexity of Value Clarification in Health Education, in: Cybernetics and Human Knowing, Vol.15. No. 1: 29-44 Luhmann, N. (1995a): Social systems (J. Bednarz & D. Baecker, Trans.) Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Luhmann, N. (1995b [1991]): Die Form “Person”. In N. Luhmann (Ed.) Soziologische Aufklärung (Vol. 6 pp. 142-154). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Luhmann, N. & Schnorr, K. E. (2000). Problems of reflection in the system of education. Münster: Waxmann. Pollitt, C. (2002). Clarifying Convergence: Striking Similarities and durable Differences in public management reform, in Public Management Review, vol. 4, issue 1: 471-492. Stichweh, R. (2005): Inclusion und Exclusion. Studien zur Gesellschaftsteorie. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Stäheli, U. (2007): Spektakuläre Spekulation. Das Populäre der Ökonomie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. Wistoft, K. (2009). Health Education – Knowledge and Values. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzel (In Danish). Wistoft, K. (2009). Pedagogical competence and value clarification among health educators. Global Health Promotion Vol.16, No.3, p.24-34 Wistoft, K. (2009). Health strategies and reservoirs of knowledge – among adolescents in Denmark. Global Health Promotion (accepted) Wistoft, K., Højlund, H., Jensen, B.B. & Andersen, N. Å. (2007). Risk Children. Copenhagen: Research project (1.9.2007-31.12.2009) founded by the National Board of Research (FSE).
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