The European governments have promoted Health Education (HE) and Education for sustainable development (ESD) - as can be seen in the development of national and local policy and contents of national curricula and the funding of development work in schools across the regions. UNs Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD - 2005-2014) is aimed at the distribution and anchoring of ESD in the whole education system. Similarly Schools for Health in Europe Network (supported by WHO Regional Office for Europe, Council of Europe and European Commission) encourages national, regional and local development and implementation of school health promotion strategies and policies with the aim to establish and sustain health education and health promotion in schools. Policy, standards and guidelines within both areas emphasize that the democratic participation of learners in learning and decision-making on health and sustainability issues is a central perspective.

Health, sustainable development and participation are complex phenomenon and researchers in both areas have been involved in vigorous debate on the meaning of these concepts and of the concepts of HE and ESD. This debate is an important background for this symposium where we will focus on emerging perspectives and challenges when national and local policy is developed and HE and ESD implemented in the education system, hereunder through participatory approaches. The transfer of political and ideological ideas and intentions to educational actions in multilevel education systems turns out to be a complex form of coordination of actions that not always can fulfill these intentions. The aim of this symposium is to discuss and critical review emerging perspectives and challenges related to this transfer.

Against this background, the purpose of this symposium session is fourfold. Based on theoretical and empirical studies within the areas of HE and ESD we will:

1.    discuss school teachers’ perspectives on curriculum content and teaching approaches in HE and ESD – and the implications of these perspectives for different stakeholders within HE and ESD
2. critically review challenges in the implementation of HE and ESD, hereunder in relation to the use of participatory approaches
3. discuss key mechanisms in the transfer of political and ideological ideas to educational actions in multilevel systems, hereunder coordination of actions on macro level (national and regional) and organisational development in schools 

The symposium session is planned with the following structure:       

• Introduction (5 min)
• Five presentations on the perspectives described above (5x10 min)
• Discussant: critical summary of the inputs, raising questions for discussion (10 min)
• Plenary discussion with the individual presenters in a panel (25 min)