Health Education Teachers’ Negotiation with Content, Pedagogical and Social Complexities

ABSTRACT

Background

School-based health education is designed for providing students with critical content of health literacy and meaningful learning experiences to prevent chronic diseases, operating quality health education programs is challenging.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to identify the subject-specific challenges faced by health education teachers and the resources they need.

Methods

Twenty-three certified health education teachers completed an online survey and a one-on-one interview on the resources they needed and the challenges they faced to deliver quality programs. Open coding, axial coding and theme development were performed on the interview data. Triangulation was applied by drawing comparison between survey data with interview data.

Results

Data analysis revealed that teachers struggled with limited resources and technological and pedagogical support. With public health hijacked by politics, teachers face unique challenges to address socially controversial and sensitive health education topics.

Discussion

To promote student health literacy through school-based health education, it is urgent to provide teachers pedagogical resources and social support to tackle the challenges.

Translation to Health Education Practice

There is an urgent need to advocate for resources to provide teachers curricular, pedagogical and policy support for teacher empowerment.

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the support from NC SHAPE in recruiting teachers for this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).