Doctoral Dissertation Research: Autonomy & Constraint: Health Educators in Schools

美国学校的健康教育很重要，但课程和方法在不同的环境下有所不同。当政策制定者、学校董事会和家长试图对健康教育政策施加影响时，健康教育者必须决定教什么和怎么教。即使规定了必修课程，健康教育工作者有时也会设法为学生改变健康教育的目的。然而，我们并不完全了解什么情况或特征允许采取这种行动，也不了解健康教育者如何在课程和他们认为学生需要的东西之间进行协商。此外，卫生教育工作者不是一个同质的群体。虽然有些是全职的、经过认证的健康教育工作者，他们在各种环境中教书，但其他人是学校教师，他们将教授健康教育作为其工作的一部分。很少有研究从健康教育者的角度描述健康教育，或比较社区和学校教师健康教育者的经验。这项研究将为解决这些差距提供必要的证据。该项目的调查结果将为培训和支持卫生教育工作者的专业组织提供信息，从而促进提高卫生教育质量和提供卫生教育的努力。本定性研究将产生50名学校卫生教育工作者的访谈数据，其中包括25名社区卫生教育工作者和25名教师卫生教育工作者。该项目将从卫生教育会议、专业名录、社区卫生组织、学校和专业教师协会招募参与者。访谈将从卫生教育工作者的角度描述以学校为基础的卫生教育教学，特别是他们在挑战和机遇方面的经验。该项目将评估卫生教育工作者的经验如何受到就业环境的影响，比较社区卫生教育工作者和教师卫生教育工作者，以确定培训、就业和经验年数的差异如何构成这些角色。该项目还将考虑健康教育工作者的个人特征，如种族、社会阶层、性别和年龄，以及结构背景，如地理位置和学校特征，如学校规模，如何塑造他们的课堂体验。分析将分两个阶段进行。首先，该项目将对每次采访逐行编码，记录任何新想法、新方向或新经历的实例，并允许数据指导出现哪些主题。其次，该项目将对数据和理论之间的关系进行密切分析。该项目将审查和研究第一阶段的代码，以确定相似性和差异性，揭示确定访谈特征的模式，并确定与预期主题或初步调查结果不同的实例。研究结果将为关于专业化和专业自主的社会学理论提供信息，特别是在教育的关键背景下。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Health education in U.S. schools is important, but the curricula and approach can differ across settings. While policymakers, school boards, and parents attempt to exert influence over health education policies, health educators must decide what and how to teach. Even when given mandated curricula, health educators sometimes find ways to repurpose health education for their students. Yet we do not fully understand what circumstances or characteristics allow for such action or how health educators negotiate gaps between curricula and what they believe their students need. Further, health educators are not a homogenous group. While some are full-time, certified health educators who teach in a variety of settings, others are school teachers who teach health education as one part of their job. Scant research describes health education from health educator perspective or compares the experiences of community and teacher health educators in schools. This study will provide needed evidence to address these gaps. Findings from this project will inform professional organizations that train and support health educators, thus promoting efforts to improve the quality and delivery of health education. This qualitative study will generate interview data from 50 school-based health educators, comprised of 25 community health educators and 25 teacher health educators. The project will recruit participants from health education conferences, professional directories, community health organizations, schools, and professional teacher associations. The interviews will describe teaching school-based health education from the perspective of health educators, particularly their experiences with challenges and opportunities. The project will assess how health educator experiences are shaped by employment context, comparing community and teacher health educators to identify how differences in training, employment, and years of experience structure these roles. The project will also consider how health educator personal characteristics, such as race, social class, gender, and age, and structural contexts such as geographical location and school characteristics, such as school size, shape their classroom experiences. The analysis will proceed in two phases. First, the project will code each interview line-by-line, noting any instances of new ideas, orientations, or experiences, and allowing the data to guide which themes emerge. Second, the project will engage in a close analysis of the relationship between the data and theory. The project will review and study the codes from the first phase to determine similarities and differences, reveal patterns that are defining features of the interviews, and identify instances that diverge from the expected themes or initial findings. Findings will inform sociological theories regarding professionalization and professional autonomy, particularly in the key context of education.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.