Session Information
08 SES 05, Children and Young People's Well-being
Paper Session
Contribution
Schools are a key setting for health promotion and improvement activities for children, and young people. The physical and social environments of the school are important dimensions, which are considered important for promoting the health and wellbeing of children (Buijs, 2009). The school setting provide an opportunity and location to reach a large number of children over many years (Notara and Sakellari, 2013; Naidoo and Wills, 2000). The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (World Health Organisation, 1986) acknowledged the influence that the surroundings can have on an individual’s health. This established a course for the settings approach in health promotion, which in turn informed the development of the Health Promoting School (HPS) movement during the 1980s.
The HPS is a whole school approach and encourages an environment that promotes the health and wellbeing of children and young people, and all those within the whole school environment. The HPS principles includes the concepts of empowerment and democracy, with the aim of developing children and young people’s competencies and skills so that they can be encouraged to make health promoting choices (Barnekow et al., 2006; Buijs, 2009). The concepts of empowerment and democracy provide an environment where children can work together with adults and are given the opportunity and encouragement to share their views and perspectives on issues related to them.
The HPS model seeks to provide a supportive environment for pupils in order to create an atmosphere that encourages holistic learning and development. It has been argued that the close connection or association of children with their environment, such as in schools, has the potential to constitute a strong determinant for the enhancement of children’s participation in the school setting (Simovska, 2004). This proposal has the aim of investigating the perspectives of school life among Irish and Nigerian pupils.
This proposal compares the findings between two countries, Nigeria and Ireland, which are situated in different continents, and represent two contrasting environments. The school/educational system in Nigeria and Ireland are similar, with children aged 3 to 11/12 years and children aged 4 to 12 years attending primary schools in Nigeria and Ireland respectively. Schools in Ireland are largely state funded while schools in Nigeria comprise mainly of both state and private owned institutions. Although in the Irish context, researches have been carried out to document the perspectives of pupils about school life (e.g., de Roiste et al., 2012, John-Akinola and Nic Gabhainn, 2014), little or no research has documented pupils’ perspectives about school life in Nigeria. This proposal documents these gaps.
This proposal aims to identify similarities or differences between Nigerian and Irish school children based on an instrument developed in an European context, conceptualised by European primary school pupils and if these concepts could be translated to African schools although considering the different school environment/system, family structure and other distinct factors.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Buijs G. J. (2009). Better schools through health: networking for health promoting schools in Europe. Eur J Educ, 44:507–519. Notara V. R. H. V. and Sakellari E. R. H. V. (2013). Health Promotion and School Health: the Health Visiting Role in Greece. International Journal, 6 (1), 37. Naidoo J. and Wills J. (2000). Health Promotion: Foundations for Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences, 2000. World Health Organisation (1986). Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, First International Conference on Health Promotion Ottawa, 21 November 1986, WHO/HPR/HEP/95.1. Barnekow V, Buijs G, Clift S, Jensen BB, Paulus P, Rivett D and Young I. (2006). Health-Promoting Schools: A Resource for Developing Indicators. International Planning Committee (IPC): European Network of Health Promoting Schools. Simovska, V. (2004). Student participation: a democratic education perspective - experience from the health-promoting schools in Macedonia. Health Education Research, 19, 2:198-207. de Roiste A, Kelly C, Molcho M, Gavin A and Nic Gabhainn S. (2012). Is school participation good for children? Associations with health and well-being. Health Education, 112:88–104. John-Akinola, Y. O., and Nic Gabhainn S. (2014) Children's participation in school: a cross-sectional study of the relationship between school environments, participation and health and well-being outcomes. BMC Public Health 14, 1: 964.
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