Health in school: stress, individual responsibility and democratic politics

Abstract

According to previous research, in contemporary western societies health is seen as an increasingly non-political issue. Rather than being at the centre of collective decision-making and democratic politics, health is regarded as resting on individual responsibility. In this study we focus on, and explore an important and challenging socio-scientific issue through the concepts of politicization and the depoliticization. We address the question of health education in schools as well as the question of citizenship and democracy, which adds to research on scientific literacy and socio-scientific issues. The study consists of two parts: firstly, we analyse whether health—more precisely stress—is portrayed as a political or non-political issue in textbooks for secondary school; secondly, and informed by the results from our analysis, we dissect and problematise what kind of citizenship that is constructed in textbooks. From a theoretical framework of politics, the article explores how citizenship emerges. Our findings show that health, and more precisely stress, is depoliticized in the textbooks. Firstly, stress is regarded as an individual—not public or governmental—concern. Secondly, stress is depoliticized in a more rigorous manner by making its political dimensions invisible. A consequence is a displacement of stress, e.g., in school, from the democratic arena to the individual citizen. As an implication we recommend an education that emphasize a political and democratic perspective on health as a complement to the individual perspective.