08. Health and Wellbeing Education
Paper
The Conscious Use of Relationship - How Teachers Promote Student Health in Their Everyday Teaching
Zofia Hammerin, Goran Basic
Linnaeus University, Sweden
Presenting Author: Hammerin, Zofia
Introduction
This study explores the role of the teacher in working with student health in high school. Teachers have been identified as crucial in promoting student health and wellbeing but it is traditionally not considered a teacher task. The article presents findings from an empirical study in which the views of the teachers are in focus.
School is considered a suitable and vital arena for working with the health of children and young people. This can be done by implementing various programmes and initiatives lead by teachers or other professionals, or in a more informal way in the everyday school practice.
Student health has been and still is a concern for the Student Health Services (SHS). It is however with the teacher that the students spend most of their time in school. A good relationship with the teacher, support from the teacher in meeting academic demands and classroom participation has proven beneficial to student health. There is also a well-documented reciprocal relationship between health and academic achievement. Overall, the same factors which promote learning, also promote health.
In Sweden, where the study is set, student health work “shall be primarily preventive and promoting” (Education Act, 2010:800). Teachers are not explicitly tasked with health promotion but stipulated to cooperate with the SHS regarding student health. While the teacher is not presented as a central actor in the Education Act, other guiding documents highlight the teacher as important for student health. Teachers thus have a role in working with student health but what this role entails is not clear in the governing documents.
The aim of the article is to contribute knowledge about how Swedish high school teachers describe their role(s) in working with student health.
Brief Previous Research
Student health work has been empirically explored before but the role of the teacher in this work is a field in need of further empirical investigation. Much of the research regarding teachers’ involvement in student health work examines various programmes and initiatives implemented at the respective schools. The focus of this article is how teachers describe their role in the informal, everyday student health work, not in a programme or an initiative.
Teacher involvement in health promotion has been criticized. Student mental health promotion can be regarded as an additional task to the existing abundance of teacher tasks. Expanding the role of the teacher is criticized as it can cause added stress and pressure. Lastly, teachers’ increased awareness of mental health problems among children and adolescents, can result in teachers starting to identify many behaviors and experiences previously deemed ordinary or understandable, as indicative of mental health problems
This study contributes knowledge about how teachers describe their roles in student health promotion. This knowledge can be used to improve student health promotion further and contribute added understanding of the complex professional role of the teacher.
Theoretical Points of Departure
The study is based on theories of social constructivism in which social phenomena are understood and become active deeds by means of human interaction; people interpret, reinterpret, negotiate, and use various strategies to influence which interpretation takes precedence, thereby influencing how a phenomenon is understood.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used
The empirical data used in this article was collected in connection with a larger qualitative study conducted in two Swedish high schools. Ten teachers participated in the study, with teaching experience from between four and 22 years.
The data was collected using semi-structured individual interviews where six open-ended questions guided the interviews. Follow-up questions were formulated in order to gain a deeper understanding of their answers. The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim.
The data was analysed using qualitative content analysis. After the interviews were read through several times, sections of the interviews pertaining to the aim of the article were selected. These sections were read again and meaning units, i.e. statements that uncovered something related to the aim, were extracted. The extracted meaning units were condensed and coded, resulting in 102 codes. These codes were then grouped into themes, in an iterative process involving, re-reading of the selected interview sections as well as the whole interviews. The groupings were based on the relationship and underlying meanings regarding differences and similarities.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe teachers clearly recognize and describe their work with student health in the everyday teaching.
Tentative results show one main theme and four themes describing the different internal roles of the teacher as health promotor. The main theme is Conscious use of relationship to facilitate health and learning. The themes are The role of a caring adult, The role of a coach, The role of a student centred pedagogical leader and The role of security creator. The purpose of all the internal roles mentioned above, is to create a professional relationship with the students which is health promoting.
There are no colclusions yet, but it is clear that the teachers consider health promotion a teacher task, not in conflict with their professional role but rather integrated with it.
ReferencesBurr, V. (2015). Social constructionism. Routledge.
Graneheim, U. H., & Lundman, B. (2004). Qualitative content analysis in nursing research: concepts, procedures and measures to achieve trustworthiness. Nurse education today, 24(2), 105-112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2003.10.001
Gustafsson, J.-E., Allodi Westling, M., Alin Åkerman, B., Eriksson, C., Eriksson, L., Fischbein, S., Granlund, M., Gustafsson, P., Ljungdahl, S., Ogden, T., & Persson, R. S. (2010). School, Learning and Mental Health: A systematic review.
Hammerin, Z., Andersson, E., & Maivorsdotter, N. (2018). Exploring student participation in teaching: An aspect of student health in school. International journal of educational research, 92, 63-74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2018.09.007
Partanen, P. (2019). Health for learning - learning for health. The Swedish National Agency of Education.
Phillippo, K. L., & Kelly, M. S. (2014). On the Fault Line: A Qualitative Exploration of High School Teachers’ Involvement with Student Mental Health Issues. School Mental Health, 6(3), 184-200. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-013-9113-5
Pössel, P., Rudasill, K. M., Sawyer, M. G., Spence, S. H., & Bjerg, A. C. (2013). Associations between Teacher Emotional Support and Depressive Symptoms in Australian Adolescents: A 5-Year Longitudinal Study. Developmental Psychology, 49(11), 2135-2146. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0031767
08. Health and Wellbeing Education
Paper
Improvement in Relational Competencies and Relationship Quality Following Empathy Training for the School Staff: A Mixed-Method Approach
Hannah Garvert1, Lukas Herrmann1, Birgitte Lund Nielsen2, Corina Aguilar-Raab1
1Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Germany; 2VIA University College English, Denmark
Presenting Author: Garvert, Hannah;
Herrmann, Lukas
The teaching-learning process and academic achievements in schools are significantly shaped by the relationship quality between teachers and students and therefore by teachers’ relational competence (Juul & Jensen, 2017). Furthermore, relationships among teachers, other pedagogical staff and school leaders are important for the social environment at a school (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Research has shown that good relationships are positively associated with various health outcomes and promotes mental health and well-being (Chernyshenko et al., 2018; Durlak et al., 2011). Conducive elements for positive relationships are interpersonal competencies such as empathy and compassion as well as self-regulating skills helping to deal with challenging situations (Flook et al. 2015; Singer & Klimecki, 2014).
These competencies can be enhanced through professional development programs preferable whole school interventions (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). It is assumed that teachers who increase their own social-emotional competencies as a result of participating in training will thus not only positively influence the interpersonal atmosphere and the way of relating to each other, but this will – directly and indirectly – also benefit the social-emotional development of the students (e.g. Jennings et al. 2017).
To date, social emotional interventions have mostly been investigated in quantitative experimental studies. However, due to the complexity of these interventions’ implementation, it has been argued that a mixed-methods approach is feasible and enables tracking more closely the multi-level changes (Nielsen et al. 2019). Hence, this study included interviews with school staff and leaders to investigate their lived experience of their relationships at school during the program implementation.
This study focuses on the “Empathie macht Schule“ project – a whole-school approach targeting all educators and other school staff, including leaders. The program bases on the work of Juul and Jensen (2017) aiming at the cultivation of educators’ empathy, mindfulness, compassion, and relational competence at three elementary schools in Berlin, Germany. Central features of this program have previously been carried out in various European countries, including a Danish teacher training (Jensen, E., Skibsted, & Christensen, 2015, Lund Nielsen, 2016) and an ERASMUS project (Nielsen at al., 2019). The training comprises six modules focusing on topics of wellbeing and mindfulness, relational competence and empathy, self-regulation and working with conflicts, challenging relationships, and children with special needs, bereavement and loss, collaboration with parents, and collegial reflection practices.
Although there are some important indications from the research to date, it remains rather unclear how qualitative and quantitative data sources analyzing the process and various outcomes are able to depict the overall picture of a social-emotional intervention effect and careful implementation practices in elementary schools.
Research question
In this presentation, we aim to relate the findings from the qualitative interviews to the individual quantitative data and finally embed them on a quantitative level in the dataset of sample of Cohort 1 collected to date, focusing on aspects relevant for relationship quality on the one hand and on self-regulating skills and distress on the other.
- How do teachers experience their relationships in their professional context, especially important change moments following the training?
- How does the perceived relationship quality change as a result of the training?
- How is this related to various aspects influencing the interpersonal self-efficacy – such as mindfulness and self-compassion as well as perceived stress?
- To what extent can the qualitative data be used to inform the understanding/interpretation for the quantitatively collected data and vice versa?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedIn our five-year longitudinal project, “Empathie macht Schule” (Empathy in Schools), elementary school staff, including leadership, are trained to increase social-emotional competencies –including mindfulness and self-compassion – and strengthen both self- and collective efficacy as part of an 18-day training offered over the course of 1.5 years. Completion of the training is followed by a one-year supervision phase and a transfer phase into self-organized continuation of the implementation process.
In a non-randomized control group design, the school staff, including the school administrators/leaders, of a total of six elementary schools are and will be studied (3 intervention IG and 3 control CG schools - this in each case in two cohorts that are offered the intervention with a time lag). Qualitatively, the school administrators and individual teachers of the intervention schools have been interviewed about their experiences with the training and about the process of implementation, and at the same time various constructs such as relationship quality, self-efficacy aspects, mindfulness, self-compassion, and stress, among others, have been collected via standardized questionnaires at different measurement points (before/after the training, after supervision, two one-year follow-ups each, in IG and CG schools).
Qualitative interview data was analyzed by multiple researchers adopting a reflexive thematic analysis approach (Terry & Hayfield, 2020).
On the quantitative level, we preformed ANOVAs focusing on group*time interactions effects.
The students of the 4th, 5th, and 6th grades have also been surveyed via standardized questionnaires at the beginning and end of each school year, and group interviews have been used to qualitatively collect their experiences, while the student data will not be presented.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsIn this presentation, we focus on the first training cohort of school staff (N = 69) and on the measurement time points before and after the training. Results from the qualitative interviews of N = 14 indicate perceived improvements at the level of relationship quality, stress regulation, mindfulness, self-compassion, and self-efficacy. More specifically, educators reflect on the changes in their interactions with students and parents in terms of shifts in how they perceive situational affordances as opportunities to enact change, accompanied by an embodied awareness of their somatic and affective sensations evoked by the relational affordances, the capacity to regulate their own emotions and suspend habitual action tendencies, and a more intentional way of attuning to students and parents as well as communicating own needs and goals more productively.
These results are not reflected in the preliminary results of the quantitative data of this subsample – we do not find significant group*time interaction effects in any of the aforementioned variables (all p > .05). When directly comparing the qualitative and quantitative data, the results suggest a stronger experience of change than would also be apparent at the descriptive level of the quantitative data points of the interviewed individuals.
We discuss the data in the light of the mixed-method approach and what conclusions can be drawn for these different sources of knowledge. Further, we weigh on the one hand the Corona pandemic as an important constraint for implementation and data collection, but also the statistically low power of the small sample against these preliminary findings and consider how further guided implementation can positively influence the change process we are aiming for.
ReferencesChernyshenko, O., Kankaras, M., & Drasgow, F. (2018). Social and emotional skills for student success and wellbeing: Conceptual framework for the OECD study on social and emotional skills. In OECD Education Working Papers. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1787/db1d8e59-en
Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., & Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The Impact of Enhancing Students’ Social and Emotional Learning: A Meta-Analysis of School-Based Universal Interventions. Child Development. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01564.x
Flook L., Goldberg S. B., Pinger L., Davidson R. J. (2015). Promoting prosocial behavior and self-regulatory skills in preschool children through a mindfulness-based kindness curriculum. Developmental Psychology, 51(1), 44–51. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038256
Jennings, P. A., Brown, J. L., Frank, J. L., Doyle, S., Oh, Y., Davis, R., Rasheed, D., DeWeese, A., DeMauro, A. A., Cham, H., & Greenberg, M. T. (2017). Impacts of the CARE for Teachers program on teachers’ social and emotional competence and classroom interactions. Journal of Educational Psychology, 109(7), 1010–1028. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000187
Jennings, P.A. & Greenberg, M.T. (2009). The prosocial Classroom: Teacher Social and Emotional Competence in Relation to Student and Classroom Outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 79 (1), 491-525.
Jennings, P. A., Brown, J. L., Frank, J. L., Doyle, S., Oh, Y., Davis, R., Rasheed, D., DeWeese, A., DeMauro, A. A., Cham, H., & Greenberg, M. T. (2017). Impacts of the CARE for Teachers program on teachers’ social and emotional competence and classroom interactions. Journal of Educational Psychology, 109(7), 1010–1028. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000187
Jensen, E., Skibsted, E., & Christensen, M. (2015, 09/09). Educating teachers focusing on the development of reflective and relational competences. Educational Research for Policy and Practice, 14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10671-015-9185-0
Juul, J., and Jensen, H. (2017). Relational Competence: Towards a New Culture of Education. Berlin: Edition Plus.
Nielsen, B.L. et al. (2019). Social, emotional and intercultural competencies: A literature review with a particular focus on the school staff. European Journal of Teacher Education 42(1),1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2019.1604670
Singer T., Klimecki O. M. (2014). Empathy and compassion. Current Biology, 24(18), R875–R878. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.06.054
Terry, G., & Hayfield, N. (2020). Reflexive thematic analysis. In Handbook of qualitative research in education (pp. 430-441). Edward Elgar Publishing.
08. Health and Wellbeing Education
Paper
The Relations Between First-Grade Students’ Temperament and Teacher-Student Interaction
Jaana Viljaranta1, Eija Räikkönen2, Sari Mullola3, Kaisa Aunola2
1University of Eastern Finland, Finland; 2University of Jyväskylä, Finland; 3University of Helsinki, Finland
Presenting Author: Viljaranta, Jaana
Children’s individual characteristics, such as temperament, play an important role in a successful transition to school. Temperament’s role has been found to be important especially in skill development, but it has also been suggested that the association between children’s temperamental characteristics and their further success in school might, actually, be related to the interaction between teacher and student (Viljaranta et al., 2015). Previous research has shown that students’ temperament is associated with the quality of teacher-student interaction (Curby et al., 2011), and that it evokes certain kinds of instruction and other educational responses among teachers (Coplan & Prakash, 2003; Keogh, 1986). However, not much is known about the relations between temperament and teacher-student interaction in the very beginning of students’ schooling. Based on previous studies showing that certain temperamental characteristics are perceived as more acceptable than others by teachers (e.g. Martin, 1989), it is possible that students’ temperament plays a crucial role in the way how teacher-student interaction starts to form during the first grade. For example, when students are showing more acceptable characteristics, teacher-student interaction is more likely to be adaptive than when students are showing more difficult or demanding characteristics.
In this study we aimed to examine, first, whether students’ temperamental characteristics are related to the ways how teachers and students interact with each other and, second, whether students’ temperamental characteristics are related to the variation in daily interaction between teachers and students. The study is carried out in Finland.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedAltogether 153 children starting their first school year, as well as their classroom teachers, participated a study where students’ temperament was measured in the beginning of the school year, and the interaction between teacher and student was measured with daily diaries during one school week in the Fall term and one school week during the Spring term.
Each child’s temperament was rated by his or her teacher by using four scales from the Temperament Assessment Battery for Children–Revised (TABC–R; Martin & Bridger, 1999) and two scales from the Revised Dimensions of Temperament Survey (DOTS–R; Windle & Lerner, 1986). Based on an exploratory factor analysis of the teacher’s report, four composite scores for children’s teacher-rated temperament were created: (a) low task orientation, (b) inhibition, (c) positive mood, and (d) negative emotionality.
Teacher-student interaction was assessed using structured daily diary questionnaires, filled in across 5 school days in Fall and 5 school days in Spring. The scales for teacher-student interaction included affection, behavioral control, and psychological control (developed based on the Finnish version of Blocks’ Child Rearing Practices Report CRPR; see Aunola & Nurmi, 2004).
A random-coefficient multilevel regression modelling was used to examine whether students’ temperamental characteristics were related to (1) the level of and (2) variation in teachers’ daily affection, psychological control, or behavioral control. Each temperamental characteristic was analysed in a separate model. In the analyses, child’s gender, his or her skills in reading and math in the beginning of school, and teacher’s work experience were controlled for.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe results from the Fall term showed that students’ characteristics were mostly related to the level of different types of interaction. The more positive mood and inhibition the student showed, the more teacher reported using affection in their interaction with the student. In addition, the lower the task orientation level and the more negative emotionality the student showed, the more behavioral and psychological control the teacher reported using. The results showed, also, that students’ low task orientation was related not only to the level but also to the variation in teachers’ daily behavioral control.
The results concerning the Spring term were somewhat different. The more positive mood the student showed, the less teacher reported using psychological control in their interaction with the student, and the lower task orientation level and the more inhibition the student showed, the more behavioral control the teacher reported using. In addition, the more the student showed negative emotionality, the more teacher reported using affection, psychological control, and behavioral control in their interaction with the student. In the Spring term students’ temperamental characteristics were not related to the daily variation in teacher-student interaction.
The findings indicate, in general, that temperamental characteristics that could be seen as more challenging in the classroom environment were related to teachers’ reports of using psychological and behavioral control in their interaction with the students. Understanding derived from these findings could help teachers to modify their interaction styles to be more in line with children’s style of behavior and reactivity (Rothbart & Jones, 1998): if the teacher can adaptively acknowledge children’s individual needs in learning situations and change his or her behavior according to the children’s individual needs, this may help children to overcome the possible difficulties in school work caused by their temperamental characteristics (see, e.g., Landry et al., 2008).
ReferencesAunola, K., & Nurmi, J.-E. (2004). Maternal affection moderates the impact of psychological control on child’s mathematical performance. Developmental Psychology, 40, 965–978. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.40.6.965
Coplan, R. J., & Prakash, K. (2003). Spending time with teacher: Characteristics of preschoolers who frequently elicit versus initiate interactions with teachers. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 18, 143– 158. doi:10.1016/S0885-2006(03)00009-7
Curby, T. W., Rudasill, K. M., Edwards, T., & Pérez-Edgar, K. (2011). The role of classroom quality in ameliorating the academic and social risks associated with difficult temperament. School Psychology Quarterly, 26, 175–188. doi:10.1037/a0023042
Keogh, B. K. (1986). Temperament and schooling: Meaning of “Goodness of Fit”? In J.V. Lerner & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Temperament and social interaction in infants and children (pp. 89−108). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Landry, S. H., Smith, K. E., Swank, P. R., & Guttentag, C. (2008). A responsive parenting intervention: The optimal timing across early childhood for impacting maternal behaviors and child outcomes. Developmental Psychology, 44, 1335–1353. doi: 10.1037/a0013030
Martin, R. P. (1989). Activity level, distractibility and persistence: Critical characteristics in early schooling. In G. A. Kohnstamm, J. E. Bates, & M. K. Rothbart (Eds.), Temperament in childhood (pp. 451–462). West Sussex, England: Wiley.
Martin, R. P., & Bridger, R. C. (1999). The temperament assessment battery for children -revised: A tool for the assessment of temperamental traits and types of young children. Unpublished manual.
Rothbart, M. K., & Jones, L. B. (1998). Temperament, self-regulation and education. School Psychology Review, 27, 479–491.
Viljaranta, J., Aunola, K., Mullola, S., Virkkala, J., Hirvonen, R., Pakarinen, E., & Nurmi, J.-E. (2015). The role of temperament on children’s skill development: Teachers’ Interaction Styles as Mediators. Child Development, 86, 1191-1209. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12379
Windle, M., & Lerner, R. M. (1986). Reassessing the dimensions of temperamental individuality across the life span: The Revised Dimensions of Temperament Survey (DOTS–R). Journal of Adolescent Research, 1, 213– 230. doi:10.1177/074355488612007
08. Health and Wellbeing Education
Paper
Youth Health Parenting and Young People’s Health Practices Across Class Contexts: A Comparative and Longitudinal Analysis
Ingunn Marie Eriksen, Kari Stefansen, Kristin Walseth, Tonje Langnes
Oslo Metropolitan university, Norway
Presenting Author: Eriksen, Ingunn Marie
Health is closely intertwined with social class: people at the top of the social hierarchy have fewer diseases and live longer than those less privileged, even in a society with low levels of inequality and a well-developed welfare state like Norway (Dahl & Elstad, 2022), the empirical context of this paper. Although youth is one of the healthiest periods in life, and generally marked more by equality than inequality in health (Friestad & Klepp, 2006), it is a key period for lifestyle establishment and therefore particularly important to understand (Burdette, Needham, Taylor, & Hill, 2017). Habits formed during youth also accumulate over the years in ways that gradually and powerfully increase social inequalities in health (Power & Matthews, 1997).
What determines differences in health practices is a complex question. Structural conditions are clearly important, but so are health cultures, i.e. distinct moralities and sets of practices related to the body, particularly physical exercise and diet. In previous research, what is explored is primarily parents’ perspectives on and investments in their children’s health. This can be a fruitful inroad to the issue of intergenerational transmission of ‘healthstyles’ – embodied notions and practices of health – but it may give the impression that it is a straightforward process to mould children’s health dispositions, which may not be the case. In the present paper we take the perspective that children also exercise agency in matters of health, especially as they enter adolescence and often are allowed more freedom to make decisions on how to spend their time and when and what to eat, and move in between school, peers, leisure activities and the family. In this paper, we ask how young people assume, engage in and navigate classed health practices as they move through youth, and what their parents’ roles are in shaping the conditions for young people’s health practices.
This warrants a focus on how children negotiate, rather than passively receive, the health culture they are socialised into. We build on Bourdieu’s understanding of the socialised body (Bourdieu, 2007). In his thinking, the socialised body or ‘habitus’ is built up of the ‘active residue or sediment’ (Crossley, 2001, p. 93) of past experiences, and functions like a scheme that shapes people’s actions, perceptions and thoughts. As people who occupy similar positions in the social space will experience the world in similar ways, habitus is always classed. Mollborn et al.s’ (2021: 577) concept of ‘collective health habituses’ refers to ideas of health that are shared and incorporated among people in particular contexts. We take the view here that the transmission of health dispositions is located within broader – and classed – parenting ethoses, what Lareau (2003, 2015) calls child care logics. Lastly, we propose that relational resources (Eriksen, Stefansen, & Smette, 2022) in the family can add to our understanding of how health practices are nurtured.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis paper draws on qualitative longitudinal research data on young people and interviews with their parents. The longitudinal analysis complements the current, largely snapshot-based research on young people’s classed health practices. Most studies on class and health in youth are based on data from one point in time. While this literature has offered important insight into (middle-) classed notions and practices of health, data with a longer timespan can facilitate a more nuanced analysis of how health dispositions acquired early in life are negotiated over time as young people mature thus making it possible to grasp processes of both continuation and change (Lamont, Beljean, & Clair, 2014; Lareau, 2015).
This study is based on repeated interviews with young people and single time interviews with their parents from the Inequality in youth project, a multi-sited ongoing longitudinal qualitative project on youth and social inequality, set in Norway. For the present analysis, we have selected two of the five sites included in the study, one upper-class urban community, ‘Greenby’, and one working-class rural community, ‘Smallville’.
The participants were recruited via their school and the interviews were executed in school or via phone/video during covid. The young people are interviewed each of the three years of lower secondary school (age 12-13 to 15-16, 2018-2021). The parents from Smallville were interviewed in 2019 and the parents from Greenby in 2021.
Rather than asking parents and young people directly about their conceptions about health as has been done in previous research (Pace & Mollborn, 2022), we look at what they do: their practices and habits, as well as their reasoning around the meaning of physical activity and food. The interviews with the young people covered topics such as the participants’ childhood, ideas about the future, and their everyday life at the time of the interview. We employed the ‘life-mode’ interview template for the last part, which details practices and activities through one particular day (Haavind, 2001) – most often the day before the interview. The parents were asked about everyday life in the family, their child’s leisure activities, how they were involved in their child’s activities and why they engaged in various ways.
The concept of “health trajectories” is central to our analysis. Focusing on two aspects of health, exercise and diet, we analyse both continuity and change in how both parents and youths think about and “do” health during the early teenage years.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsWe found two distinct health cultures that most likely instigated long-lasting health practices in the young. In Greenby, the upper-class community, we see a culture with a strong ‘expert’ based and achievement-oriented health script. The parents led by example and supported their children’s sports participation and a healthy diet practically, emotionally, and cognitively. The youth health parenting in Greenby was defined by close parental supervision and modelling throughout youth, family togetherness in health(y) practices, and teaching the children health practices as investments for future payoff: for health itself, for achievement and for discipline. Relational resources - family love and community – were expressed through shared physical activities and nutritious meals. The youths led activity dense lives and conveyed a strong commitment to eating healthy food. Although many quit organised sports around the age of 15-16, they still dabbled in the sport or worked as trainers.
In Smallville, the rural working-class culture, the parents encouraged and supported participation in organised sports in early youth – and then withdrew. Their approach was characterised by some separation between children and parents. This gave space for the child to develop their own practices, which often became heavily influenced by peers. Relational resources in the family were more linked to social meals – not necessarily healthy. Parents were less active in sports themselves, thus communicating a looser relationship between the body, moral worth and future prospects. The youths played organised sports in early youth. They, too, quit around the age of 15-16, but almost all went on to join commercial gyms. Rather than being fit for fight for challenges ahead as their upper-class peers aimed for, their goal became the good-looking body – as a means to fit in with their peers here and now. Food was linked to comfort, but also to excessive dieting.
ReferencesBourdieu, P. (2007). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Durham: Duke University Press.
Burdette, A. M., Needham, B. L., Taylor, M. G., & Hill, T. D. (2017). Health Lifestyles in Adolescence and Self-rated Health into Adulthood. Journal of health and social behavior, 58(4), 520-536. doi:10.1177/0022146517735313
Crossley, N. (2001). The social body: Habit, identity and desire: Sage.
Dahl, E., & Elstad, J. I. (2022). Sosial ulikhet tar liv – faglige og folkehelsepolitiske vurderinger. Oslo: Nasjonalforeningen for folkehelsen.
Eriksen, I. M., Stefansen, K., & Smette, I. (2022). Inequalities in the making: The role of young people’s relational resources through the Covid-19 lockdown. Journal of Youth Studies. doi:10.1080/13676261.2022.2144716
Friestad, C., & Klepp, K.-I. (2006). Socioeconomic status and health behaviour patterns through adolescence: Results from a prospective cohort study in Norway. European Journal of Public Health, 16(1), 41-47. doi:10.1093/eurpub/cki051
Haavind, H. (Ed.) (2001). Kjønn og fortolkende metode. Oslo: Gyldendal norsk forlag.
Lamont, M., Beljean, S., & Clair, M. (2014). What is missing? Cultural processes and causal pathways to inequality. Socio-Economic Review, 12(3), 573-608.
Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lareau, A. (2015). Cultural knowledge and social inequality. American Sociological Review, 80(1), 1-27. doi:10.1177/0003122414565814
Power, C., & Matthews, S. (1997). Origins of health inequalities in a national population sample. The Lancet, 350(9091), 1584-1589. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(97)07474-6
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