Health education: analysis of teachers’ and future teachers’ conceptions from 16 countries (Europe, Africa and Middle East)

Abstract

School is an important setting for health education and health promotion, and it has been recognised that teachers’ conceptions play a crucial role for the effective implementation of school health education. With the European FP6 Biohead-Citizen project on “Biology Health and Environmental education for better citizenship” we analysed the potential differences between several countries by associating teachers’ and future teachers’ conceptions to controlled parameters, such as level of training, religion, political view. A questionnaire was constructed during the first year of the project, and following a pilot test, the final questionnaire was applied to 6379 teachers and future teachers. We then used well-suited statistical multivariate methods to investigate complex data featuring the conceptions of many individuals, according to many topics. We show that a prominent source of variation in teachers’ conceptions is related to countries, and further suggest that there are differences in two kinds of conceptions: a) individual health responsibilities and abilities; b) social policies. Religion, academic level or training had also an impact in teachers’ conceptions of health education. Another important feature is the gap between what teachers and future teachers say about their own health and what they say it should be taught in school. Results are then discussed.