Health Promoting Indicators and Measures in an Educational Context

In line with international trends, the new Norwegian curricula for education have a stronger focus on life mastery, democracy and sustainability compared with previous requirements. Students are to develop competence that promotes health and responsible decision-making. The current study presents a programme implemented in lower secondary school aiming at training social and emotional skills and preparing students to become responsible citizens through engaging their peers in meaningful activities during and after school, as well as coaching younger students. The theoretical framework for the study is Antonovsky’s health promotion theory and salutogenic model, stating that for individuals to develop a sense of coherence in life, situations must be comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful. A set of health promoting indicators developed based on research on health promoting measures in kindergartens and schools has served as a framework for the analysis of students’ experiences. The indicator set is divided into four main categories: capacity for action, social and emotional competence, stress management competence and health promotion competence. Interviews examining the students’ experiences of being engaged in this programme show positive results, mostly related to the indicators defined as capacity for action, social and emotional competence, and stress management competence. The study concludes that the students’ experience of facilitating their peers’ well-being by engaging them in activities may be related to health promoting factors, and that the set of indicators presented in this study may serve as a useful framework for planning and evaluating health promoting measures.