Home and school responsibilities for children’s health literacy development: the views of Finnish and Russian parents and teachers

ABSTRACT

This study examined how parents and teachers of pupils aged 10–11 in North Karelia, Finland, and the Republic of Karelia, Russia, perceived the home and school responsibilities associated with providing children with information related to different health learning content areas. The majority of parents and teachers considered guiding pupils’ health learning as a joint responsibility of home and school. Finnish and Russian parents’ views differed in several areas; the largest differences concerned the areas of oral health and dental care and washing and hygiene. Teachers’ views were more consistent between regions than parents’ views; the largest difference was in the area of sexuality and reproduction. Within each region, teachers perceived more areas to be the school's responsibility than parents did.

KEYWORDS:

• Home
• school
• responsibility
• health communication
• health literacy
• Finland
• Russia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Marjorita Sormunen, PhD, is a university researcher in the Department of Nursing Science, University of Eastern Finland. Her research interests are school health promotion, health partnership between home and school, and health education. She is a member of Schools for Health in Europe (SHE) international research group.

Svetlana Goranskaya, PhD, is an associate professor of Department of Pharmacology, Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy at the Institute of Medicine, Petrozavodsk State University. Previously, she has worked as an associate professor of Chair of Safety of Living and Health Saving Technologies at the Petrozavodsk State University. She is an honored educator of the Republic of Karelia, honored youth policy activist of the Russian Federation, author of over 100 research articles, and a researcher in the field of forming healthy lifestyle and prevention of public health hazards among adolescence and youth.

Valentina Kirilina, PhD, is a director of the Institute of Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism at the Petrozavodsk State University. She is a researcher in the field of labor physiology, sports physiology, sports medicine, development physiology and psycho-physiology. She participated in Russian–Finnish project “Safe school” (2009–2010) and “Forming culture of safe and healthy way of life of Russian students” (2011–2015).

Kirsi Bykachev, M.Sc. (Econ.&Bus.Adm.), B.Sc. (Soc.), is a project manager for the “eHealth Services for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (eCAP), 2015-2018” project at the Department of Nursing Science, University of Eastern Finland. Previously, she has managed other EU-funded projects like “Addressing challenging health inequalities of children and youth between two Karelias (AHIC), 2013-2014”.

Kerttu Tossavainen, Professor, Ph.D., is the head of the research group. She has long-standing experience in intervention and action research in her special field, health promotion with children, families, and school nurses in different school communities, such as: 1984–1988, the Eastern Finland Youth Project; 1989–1992, the National Healthy School Project; 1993–2007, the European Network of Health Promoting Schools (ENHPS); and since 2007, the Schools for Health in Europe (SHE).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Karelia ENPI CBC Programme, the University of Eastern Finland, and the Petrozavodsk State University