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What do health-promoting schools promote? Processes and outcomes in school health promotion
Edited by Professor Venka Simovska
This special issue of Health Education features research, theory and practice based perspectives on what counts as desirable outcomes of health promotion in schools in terms of health as well as education, and the effective processes in schools which lead to these outcomes.
The notion of "health-promoting schools" has been in use for more than 30 years. It emerged in Europe in the early 1980s and was further elaborated at the World Health Organisation (WHO) Health Promoting Schools Symposium in Scotland in 1986 as well as a few years later in the publication entitled The Healthy School ([16] Young and Williams, 1989). The European Network of Health Promoting Schools (ENHPS) was established in 1991, drawing on the five principles of the Ottawa Charter ([14] WHO, 1991). In accordance with the main principles and developments in the broader field of health promotion, health-promoting school is defined as an educational setting that attempts to constantly develop its capacity for healthy learning, working and living ([15], [13] WHO, 1993, 1998). The whole school environment is seen as an important arena for action if a school is to promote health.
The current work on school health promotion in Europe is organised through the Schools for Health in Europe (SHE) network with 43 participating countries represented by a national coordinator ([2] Buijs, 2009). Building on the previous work within ENHPS and the International Union of Health Promotion and Education ([3] Clift and Jensen, 2005; [9] IUHPE, 2009; [11] St Leger et al. , 2010) the SHE network endorses five core values (equity, sustainability, inclusion, empowerment and action competence, and democracy) and five pillars (whole school approach to health, participation, school quality, evidence, schools, and communities) as a common basis of the SHE approach to school health promotion ([2] Buijs, 2009).
Over the 30 years the concept of health-promoting schools has in practice been interpreted differently in different cultural, geographical and educational contexts, thus obtaining a wide range of meanings. The ideology underpinning the health promoting school is always controlled by elements of professional power and the need for public accountability ([5] Denman et al. , 2002). Different interpretations emphasise different aims and...