The health of migrants is an international concern. Health education is one way in which states attempt to address this concern. Research suggests however, that health assumes different meanings in different cultures, which makes health education a complex and potentially challenging endeavour. This presentation is part of a project that focuses on newly arrived school aged immigrants’ encounters with health education in different school subjects in Sweden. The overall purpose of this presentation is to develop an understanding of what happens when school aged immigrants experience health education in the school subjects that contain health in Sweden: physical education and health, home and consumer studies, biology, and social studies.
In this study, we worked with 20 immigrant students aged 15-19 with different backgrounds. Their country of origin included Eritrea, Iran, Kenya, Bosnia, Somalia, Congo, Nigeria, Syria, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Gambia, among others. The participants had migrated to Sweden for various reasons although most sought a less risky, more prosperous life. To generate data, we presented the participants with photographs and vignettes during interviews. The participants were invited to comment on the photographs and talk about issues related to health, wellbeing, fitness and lifestyle. Participants were also presented with several short scenarios about different conceptions of health and wellbeing being used in educational settings. The participants were asked to appraise the situations, and describe how the scenarios were relevant to their experiences of health education.
Five general trends in the data were identified: (1) The participants learned about certain dimensions of health outside of school. Health education was not the only, and sometimes not the main, source of knowledge; (2) Physical health as fitness was the least contentious, most recognizable dimension of health; (3) Some participants missed a spiritual dimension of health in Swedish schooling; (4) A number of participants disagreed with aspects of Swedish health education, notably in topics related to sex, sexualities, and relationships.
While research on health and health education frames newly arrived students as deficient, our findings suggest that newly arrived students often have a critical distance towards health education and are able to critique health education concepts. At the same time, in order for health education to be a collaborative process, there appears to be a need for practitioners to work across the school-family boundary, also acknowledging young people with different cultural backgrounds as resources in health education.
2023.
AARE - Australian Association for Research in Education, 26 - 30 November 2023, Melbourne, Australia