Annual Report 2017, Copenhagen

Network 8 had a full programme at ECER 2017, consisting of 17 sessions. Two of the sessions were symposium formats, one was a workshop, and the rest were paper sessions. We organized four joint sessions: three joint sessions with Network 18 - Research on Sports Pedagogy, and one joint session with Network 14 - Communities, Families and Schooling. The sessions were well attended and experienced as of a good quality by the participants. This year we had excellent attendance of the early morning and late afternoon sessions too.

Thematically, the sessions revolved around critical examination of the following topics: wellbeing and mental health in school, physical education and learning, curriculum issues, school reforms and framings of health education and health promotion in schools, learning outcomes including critical health literacy, sexuality education, programme implementation and policy enactment, and teachers’ professional development related to health and wellbeing education. The papers presented covered a wide range of conceptual, theoretical and methodological approaches and represented research from different cultural, political geographical and socio-economic contexts.

Clearly, we can state that ECER 2017 highlighted the state of the art of research on health education in Europe and beyond.

The network had a special call specifying the general conference theme to the research on health and wellbeing education in schools. This worked well, as it helped focus the submissions and organize the programme thematically.

We have good ties with network 18 and 14 traditionally, and this was reflected this year too. We could expand the collaboration with other networks, for example the policy network and the curriculum network in the future.

This year, the Network experienced a growing feeling of returning participants, and a stronger sense of belonging to the network, commitment to the sessions and the participants contributing substantially to good discussions at the sessions.

We continued the tradition of an ‘opening session’ for the network, with an invited talk presenting the research from the research community in the host country. We will continue this in the future too.
The Special issue of the Journal Health Education: ‘School Health Education and Promotion: Current Approaches and Critical Perspectives’, Edited by Deana Leahy and Venka Simovska has been published as planned. This is the first special issue following the publishing agreement between EERA Council and Emerald. The next special issue is in process of reviewing the submissions and it is expected to be published early in 2018.