Health inclusive education

When considering the relevance of contemporary learning theories to health education and promotion work in schools, it is necessary to inspect the kinds of discourses used therein for how they understand and thereby constitute people and their worlds. For instance, contemporary educational practices, teaching and learning included, are dominated by constructivist theory and its person-in-the world purview. It follows that from these discourses potentials for inclusion (and exclusion) emanate helping to constitute the very form and nature of our schools. This paper contributes to an ongoing explication of existing and persisting discursive conditions in the cultural politics of education focussing on how these inform teaching and learning in health education. By critically examining the purposes of contemporary educational practice and the theoretical precepts which support its activities, we move closer to being able to realise the possibilities of a refocussed kind of work. Such practice is dedicated to engaging meaning as it is applied by those in the living of their daily lives and accordingly decentres teaching and learning to enable health inclusive education.