Schools and critical public health: towards dialogue, collaboration and action

Authors

Michael Gard, Southern Cross University
Jan Wright, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

100410

Publication Details

Gard, M. & Wright, J. (2014). Schools and critical public health: towards dialogue, collaboration and action. Critical Public Health, 24 (2), 109-114.

Abstract

For a field that generates so many research publications, school health is the focus of remarkably little critical scholarly analysis. This is a curious situation for many reasons, not least because so much of what does happen in schools is the subject of heated disagreement. The purpose of schools and the optimal methods for educating children are regularly the context for both healthy public debate and ideological warfare. With the pos- sible exception of sex education, however, the health-related role of schools tends to slip peacefully under the radar. In fact, something of a becalmed consensus seems to pervade school health, leaving its many advocates and practitioners to go about their business lar- gely untroubled by the kinds of probing questions which might seem worth asking.