Pedagogical competence and value clarification among health educators

Individual and social values are increasingly important in health education. This article examines how health educators in Greenland and Denmark engage in value clarification as part of their educational practices. It presents the results of a study of health professionals in a variety of settings,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Global Health Promotion
Main Author: Wistoft, Karen
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publications 2009
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1757975909339767
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1757975909339767
Description
Summary:Individual and social values are increasingly important in health education. This article examines how health educators in Greenland and Denmark engage in value clarification as part of their educational practices. It presents the results of a study of health professionals in a variety of settings, focusing in particular on how development work and experimentation can strengthen their pedagogical competences. The study focuses on belief, reasoning, interpretation and reflection, rather than routines, skills, or ethical rules, and takes a participatory approach that oscillates between dialogical and qualitative empirical methodologies. It observes pedagogical practice in selected settings in Greenland and the municipality of Copenhagen. Within the framework provided by four discourses that appear to organize communication about health, it shows how values became important to the progress of two research-based development projects. On this basis, the article argues that health education can be effectively grounde d in the values, perceptions, and experiences of a given population, while being guided by the health educators’ biomedical knowledge and educational values. (Global Health Promotion, 2009; 16(3): pp. 24—34)