Current issues in biological education research: the case of health dducation

Abstract

Health education contributes to promote the feeling of responsibility of one’s own and the others’ health, enabling each one to perceive critically each actual situation in order to adopt the most appropriate and efficient behaviour. In this view, health education is an education for the life of persons and communities, contributing for the learning of how to improve not only one’s own physical health but also the interpersonal relationships, leading to a general improvement of the collective well-being. Health education is addressed to the person as a whole, mobilises knowledge, beliefs, social representations, behaviours, interactions with the physical and social environment. It is not to say what one must do, but rather to inform and to create the conditions for the person to acquire the competences for making (as much as possible) free choices for what he/she estimates it is healthier for him/her as well as for the others. For the prevention of risk behaviours, educators must have in mind all the above factors when implementing pedagogic activities on the prevention of risk behaviours in the classroom, which are associated to knowledge, attitudes and awareness.