Development dynamics of action-oriented learning on health education

Abstract

Today a change in the context of health promotion as a consequence of present world situation is advocated due to inequalities in health, globalization, environmental changes, urbanization, demographic changes, new and reappearing diseases, advances in medical science and in information technologies and the role of the State. The strategies of health promotion, which have responded to these changes and concerns, are directed towards health risks and determinants of health and, re-enforce the Millennium Development Goals. In this context, health education has changed from a traditional approach of isolated topics, such as diet, drugs, physical exercise or sexuality to one where the generic teaching of action competence lies beneath the specific problems of health. As a consequence, in this paper it is argued that the principal educational objective of health education is to develop student action competence, which is achieved with the genuine participation of students in democratic health education projects. These projects use active strategies in the construction of action-oriented knowledge that leads students to carry out individual or collective actions and provoke positive changes in their lifestyles and/or life conditions. In this sense, a research intended to characterise the sex education practices of some Portuguese teachers (N=87), and analyse the eventual training needs to develop action-oriented learning projects on sex education was carried out. These results and the implications in terms of teacher in-service training will be discussed.