Annual Report 2015, Budapest
ECER 2015 in Budapest was a success. The Network's conference programme consisted of 20 sessions (close to 60 papers). Most of the sessions were paper presentations, but this year we had 3 symposia, one round table and an interactive poster session. The attendance of the sessions was good, and the level of the presentations and discussions fairly good. Thematicaly, the presentations covered a wide range ot topics relevant for the field of health education resarch, such as curriculum challenges, teacher professional development and wellbeing, school leaders' wellbeing; the whole school approach to a number of health-related issues; policy transformation and implementation related to health education and health promotion in schools, professional competences, sexuality education, psychological wellbeing and learning etc.
Health Education Research Network did have a special call, and the experience with it was positive, mostly in terms of diseeminating the call widely and drawing attention to the specific focus of the network, as different, although connected to some of the other EERA networks.
We had two joint sessions - one symposium with NW30 (Environmental and Sustainability Education and one paper session with NW19 (Sports Pedagogy). Both sessions were experienced positively, and particularly the symposium was a success in terms of high attendance from both networks. The discussion in the joint paper session with Sports pedagogy network were experienced as of a very good quality by the chair. We defnitely would like to continue the good collaboration with both networks and extend it to a few new ones.
We did achieve the plans set out in the last report - the book Schools for Health and Sustainability has been publsihed by Springer; a special issue of Health Education on Sexuality Education in an international perspective was published, and the summer school was organized in collaboration with the SHE Network and University of Eastern Finland.
The research focus and the special call for 2015 for NW8 was closely related to the overal conference theme this year, as the network papers revolved around 'global social issues and education'. Health is considered as one of the largest social chanllenges globally, and the role of education, and of educational research related to it cannot be ignored. Health within the research scope of NW8 is addressed as a socio-ecological rather than bio-medical concept, and health education and promotion in schools is viewed from the perspective of empowerment, emancipation and subjectification, rather than silmple behaviour modification and life style regulation. Consequently, health education and promotion in schools are related to issues of democracy, social justice and equity - that is, wider purposes of education.