Health promoting schools – the right way

Abstract

The aim of this research was to determine how the New Right agenda has impacted on the perceptions about the Health Promoting School (HPS) model and its practice. The case study school – a Catholic secondary school, provided opportunity to reflect upon the daily experience of those in a HPS and how these experiences can be constructed. The methods used included running focus groups - students, teachers, administrators, parents and health agencies, and the generation of narratives and commentaries from key stake holders within the school community. This thesis draws on the work of Dewey, Bourdieu and Apple to position its critical deconstruction of one school community’s experience of activity that can be described as about HPS’s. There were four assumptions that underpinned the thesis. The first two arose from the literature that claimed the universality of the HPS model and the second two were derived from the capacity of the school to develop and evolve a setting for health promotion. The potential for this school as a HPS community to deliver on health-related social justice outcomes is yet to be achieved. The commandeering of health promotion terms and concepts by the New Right generates a metaphysical focus that delivers a view of the HPS that is in variance to the original intent.