Mapping out the higher education curricula to locate pre-service teachers’ training in health education: the case for critical pedagogy

Abstract School health education (SHE), as the principal pedagogical tool of public health, may be utilized in schooling to cultivate awareness in health-related issues and to equip children with relevant skills. This empirical work seeks to explore the curricula of pre-service schoolteachers, to identify whether graduate courses include SHE as a subject, how is it shaped and whether critical pedagogy principles are embedded. Following the qualitative research paradigm, a corpus of n=21 documents was generated including all the educational departments of the Greek higher education, consisting of Departments of Early Childhood Education and Care (n=3), Departments of Preschool Education (n=9), Departments of Primary Education (n=9). Content analysis identified SHE in 11 out of 21 educational departments (=47%). Thematic analysis revealed considerable variability in the curricula, whereas emphasis is observed in health-related topics than the methods and values of SHE. Critical pedagogy principles are not explicitly evident in the curricula, whereas a biomedical orientation is persistent leaving little space for concepts relevant to social justice to flourish. Schoolteachers pre-service training in SHE needs to be revised in accordance with the key messages emerging from the major public health crisis of pandemic Covid-19, acknowledging that vulnerability is exacerbated and inequalities are widened.