1reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/851747/4/FinalReport.doc · Web viewThis Report is an accurate statement of the objectives, conduct, results and outputs (to date) of the research project

The impact of new health imperatives on schools RES-000-23-2003

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCILPOLARIS HOUSE

NORTH STAR AVENUESWINDON SN2 1UJTel: 01793 413000Fax: 01793 413001

GTN 1434

REFERENCE NUMBER

TITLEThe Impact of New Health Imperatives on Schools

INVESTIGATORSDr Emma Rich (PI), Professor John Evans (CI)

INSTITUTIONLoughborough University

This is the ESRC End of Award Report Form. The form should be completed and returned to: The Evaluation Reports Officer, Communications & Information Directorate at the ESRC on or before the due date. Please note that the Report can only be accepted if all sections have been completed in full, and all award-holders have signed declaration one.

Award holders should also submit seven additional copies of this Form, and eight copies of the research report and any nominated outputs to be evaluated along with the Report.

A copy of the complete Report, comprising this form and the research report, should be formatted as a single document and sent as an email attachment to [email protected]. Please enter the Award Reference Number as the email subject.

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REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

The ESRC End of Award Report is a single document

comprising the following sections:

End of Award Report Form Declaration 1: Conduct of the ResearchDeclaration 2: ESRC ‘Society Today’Declaration 3: Data ArchiveProject DetailsActivities & Achievements Questionnaire

Research Report c5000 words free text (guidelines attached)

Nominated Outputs (Optional)

A maximum of two (fully referenced)

Eight copies of the End of Award Report document and any Outputs must be submitted to ESRC.

Award Holders should note that:

1 The final instalment of the award will not be paid until an acceptable End of Award Report is received.

2 Award holders whose reports are overdue or incomplete will not be eligible for further ESRC funding until the reports are accepted.

ESRC reserves the right to take action to reclaim up to 25% of the value of awards issued after November 1999 in cases where submission of an acceptable End of Award Report is more than six months overdue.

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DECLARATION ONE: CONDUCT OF THE RESEARCH

This Report is an accurate statement of the objectives, conduct, results and outputs (to date) of the research project funded by the ESRC.

1. Award Holder(s) Signature

NB. This must include anyone named as a co-applicant in the research proposal.

TITLE INITIALS

SURNAME SIGNATURE

Dr EJ RichProf J Evans

2. Administrative Authority Signature

DATE:

3. Head of Department, School or Faculty Signature

DATE:

Photocopies of this page are acceptable in the seven additional printed copies of the report. This page should be left blank in the email copy.

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DECLARATION TWO: ESRC "SOCIETY TODAY"

"Society Today" is the ESRC’s publicly available research database on the WWW, containing summary details of all ESRC research projects and their associated publications and outputs. From Feb 2005, the texts of Summary and Full reports from End of Award Reports will also be available. Society Today will provide an excellent opportunity for researchers to publicise their work; the database will potentially have a large user base, drawn not only from Higher Education, but increasingly from government, voluntary agencies, business and the media. Summary details of publications and/or other outputs of research conducted under ESRC funded awards must be submitted to the Society Today database. Please contact: ESRC Society Today Support for technical queries or advice in regard to uploading outputs. Tel: 0871 641 2115; e-mail: [email protected]

Please sign at either A or B below.

A. Details of relevant outputs of this award have been submitted to Society Today and details of any ensuing outputs will be submitted in due course.

Signature of Principal Award Holder

DATE:

B. This award has not yet produced any relevant outputs, but details of any future publications will be submitted to Society Today as soon as they become available.


DATE:

Award holders should note that the end of award report cannot be accepted, and the final claim cannot be paid, until either ESRC has received confirmation that details of relevant outputs have been submitted to Society Today or the award holder has declared that

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the award has not so far produced any relevant outputs

Photocopies of this page are acceptable in the seven additional printed copies of the report. This page should be left blank in the email copy.

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DECLARATION THREE: DATA ARCHIVE

A machine-readable copy of any dataset arising from the research must be offered for deposit with the ESRC Data Archive within three months of the end of the award. All enquiries should be addressed to; The Acquisitions Section, UK Data Archive, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ. e-mail: [email protected] The Data Archive maintains an informative website at: Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.

Award Holders submitting qualitative data should refer to the Qualidata website at www.essex.ac.uk/qualidata

Please sign at either A or B below.

A. Machine-readable copies of datasets arising from this award have been, or are in the process of being, offered for deposit with the ESRC Data Archive.


DATE:

B. There are no relevant datasets arising from this award to date.


DATE:

Award holders should note that the ESRC will withhold the final payment of an award if a dataset has not been deposited to the required standard within three months of the end of award, except where a modification or waiver of deposit requirements has been agreed in advance.

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http://www.essex.ac.uk/qualidata

mailto:[email protected]


Photocopies of this page are acceptable in the seven additional printed copies of the report. This page should be left blank in the email copy

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PROJECT DETAILS

ESRC END OF AWARD REPORT: PROJECT DETAILS

AWARD NUMBER:

RES-000-22-2003

AWARD TITLE: (the box will accommodate up to 4 lines of text)

The Impact of New Health Imperatives on Schools

AWARD START DATE

1st April 2007 TOTAL AMOUNT EXPENDED:

£82,681

AWARD END DATE

30th December 2009

In the case of awards which have transferred please include: the full expenditure at each institution and relevant transfer dates.

AWARD HOLDER(S):NB. This must include anyone named as a co-applicant, as originally listed in the research proposal.

TITLE INITIALS SURNAME DATE OF BIRTH No HOURS PER WEEK/ % TIME ON PROJECT

Dr E Rich 14/05/1977 3.75 hrs per weekProf J Evans 16/10/1952 1 hr per week

Principal Award Holder's FULL OFFICIAL ADDRESS(please list other addresses on a separate sheet if necessary)

[email protected]

School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, Loughborough University Ashby Road Loughborough

FAX NUMBER+44 (0)1509 226301TELEPHONE NUMBER+44 (0)1509 222765

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Leicestershire LE11 3TU

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ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS QUESTIONNAIRE

1. Non-Technical SummaryA 1000 word (maximum) summary of the main research results, in non-technical language, should be provided below. The summary might be used by ESRC to publicise the research. It should cover the aims and objectives of the project, main research results and significant academic achievements, dissemination activities and potential or actual impacts on policy and practice.

Currently, public discourse around ‘health’ focuses on the assumed relationship between childhood inactivity, young people’s diets, and a putative rise in levels of obesity. As such, children are increasingly being identified as a population ‘at risk’ in relation to obesity and associated diseases. Such concerns are driving what we describe as ‘new health imperatives’ which prescribe the ‘lifestyle’ choices young people should make, particularly in relation to physical activity and diet. The drive to tackle a so called ‘obesity epidemic’ has resulted in extensive government funding to support a number of health policies and school based initiatives (e.g., annual weight checks, fingerprint screening in school canteens, removal of vending machines) to monitor and regulate young people’s weight, physical activity patterns and diets. This research explored how such health imperatives and their associated strategies are being adopted, adapted and re-contextualised in schools, and their impact on young people’s identities, health, well being and rights. The study formed part of a wider international collaborative research project with partner institutions in New Zealand and Australia. The study was grounded in case study methodology: In the UK study this has been achieved through analyses of 90 in depth interviews and questionnaire responses from 1176 young people across a diverse range of backgrounds aged between 9-16 years old. 19 Interviews with teachers were also conducted across the 8 schools. In addition to this, at each school, copies of health and PE programmes, school policies, textbooks, websites and other relevant resources were collected.

The research has highlighted the different ways in which health policy is recontexualised in schools. Although operationalized in markedly different ways, schools tended to enact health imperatives through a range of regulative and surveillant practices which monitor young people’s bodies and health behaviours e.g., lunch box inspections, annual weighing, moral commentary about children’s weight. The pervasiveness of the surveillance which

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accompanies new health imperatives is such that the majority of young people in our research were preoccupied with their bodies and weight. Many had been bullied about their weight in schools, wanted to lose weight or engaged with extensive forms of surveillance of their own or others’ bodies. Participants reported worrying a great deal about what their future lives would be like if they gained weight. Far from improving health, for many, health imperatives generated a concern with their body which generated varying degrees of psychological and social stress.

Results suggest that children predominantly understand the complex issue of ‘health’ as a simplistic issue of weight management. The majority of students were cognisant of the widely held presumption that achieving health is primarily a matter of eating well, exercising frequently and losing weight. Rather less articulated understandings of health with reference to well being or broader and more complex understandings of the body. Social, emotional and other constituents of health were rarely alluded to, and familiar health issues such as smoking, drinking, sexual behaviour, often took secondary importance to matters of weight. Many children suggested that evaluating health was simply a matter of ‘looking’ at a person, assessing their size, shape (and/or assessing their eating and exercise behaviours), and making judgements about their perceived weight. This way of thinking (as evident in new health imperatives) appeared to grant young people moral licence to comment, often negatively, on the body size, shape and weights of others (including their peers).

The study highlighted the significant role of interrelationships between key social sites (especially the family and peer group) in young people’s engagement with and negotiations around the new health imperatives featuring in schools. Our data suggest that students have to negotiate their identities often through contradictory cultural representations of ‘health’ and with reference to multiple identifications (e.g. role models from music, sport, TV, family, peers, etc). Young people report that they traverse a variety of terrains and experience multiple meanings (connected to health and the body) simultaneously, not all of which are afforded equal levels of interest or influence. The health messages they receive from schools thus have to be set alongside a range of other influences and messages emanating form popular culture, family, friends, church or internet and elsewhere, that may have more immediate, pressing relevance to their lives. Young people have vastly different experiences of new health imperatives in schools, depending on their social class and ethnic backgrounds and experience of particular forms of schooling, family and community. These configurations of health have particular effects for how individuals understand and act toward their own and others’ bodies. Rather than a matter of individual effort and

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motivation, the opportunity to understand and enact the health behaviours expected of young people are thus shaped by a complex web of relationships between formal schooling and other social sties, such as the media, family and peers. However, this social context is rarely given due attention in health policy, particularly those focused on anti-obesity initiatives.

Research results have been disseminating through international conference symposium, 2 ESRC seminar series, journal articles and book chapters. 2 book proposals are currently being drafted.

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2. Dissemination

A. Please outline any specific plans you have for further publication and/or other means of dissemination of the outcomes and results of the research.

Research findings have thus far been translated into 9 conference papers, 2 journal articles and 6 book chapters (all are referenced in the bibliography of main report and registered output on ESRC website). Theoretical and empirical papers will continue to be prepared for peer reviewed journals in health, education and professional journals. Conference events and ESRC seminar series will provide further means through which to engage with professional and academic audiences.

A special edition of ‘Discourse : Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education’ (a leading international Australian based journal) to be published in 2012 will report findings from the research in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Two book proposal will be submitted to publishers in 2010.

Data will be translated into narrative resources for schools to assist young people in learning about the social-cultural influenced on health. In the first instance, these resources will be provided to those schools who participated in the study.

B. Please provide names and contact details of any non-academic research users with whom the research has been discussed and/or to whom results have been disseminated.

NA

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3. Nominated Outputs (see Guidelines 1.4)

Please give full details of the two nominated outputs which should be assessed along with this report. Please provide one printed copy of publicly available web-based resources, eight copies of any nominated outputs must be submitted with the End of Award Report.

Output 1: Evans, J, Davies, B., Rich, E. and De Pian, L. (in press, 2010) Health Imperatives, Policy and the Corporeal Device: Schools, subjectivity and children’s health, special edition ‘contemporary school health policies, practices and pedagogies, (special edition) Policy Futures in Education.

Output 2: Rich, E., Evans, J., and De-Pian, L. (in press a) Children’s bodies, surveillance and the obesity crisis. In E.Rich, L.F.Monaghan and L.Aprhramor (Eds) Debating Obesity: Critical Perspectives. Routledge.

4. Staffing

Please detail appointments and departures below for ALL staff recruited for this award. Where possible, please note each person's name, age, grade; and for departing staff, destination type on leaving. (Destination types: Academic post, Commercial, Public Sector, Personal, Other).

NB. This section must not include anyone who is an award holder.Title

Initials

Surname

Date Of Birth

Grade Appointment Date

Departure Date

Destination Type & Post

Dr H Mycroft Research 6

April 2007 October 2007

Personal: Left due to serious illness

Dr T Byrom Research 6

November 2007

August 2008

Academic: Lectureship post at Nottingham University

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Ms L De Pian Research 6

Sept 2008 March 2009

Academic

5. Virements

Since 1st April 1996 investigators may vire between grant headings without reference to Council, except where major capital items are being provided for. Please detail below any changed use of resources and the benefits or problems this brought.

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6. Major difficulties

Please detail below any major difficulties, scientific or administrative/logistical, encountered during your research and comment on any consequent impact on the project. Further details should be included in the main report, including any advice you might have for resolving such problems in future projects.

During the research period we faced a number of changes in personnel at critical moments for the research due to their illness and finding a more permanent position elsewhere. For example the transition between the first and second Research Assistant occurred during the data collection period and thus we lost valuable time and access to schools within which we were collecting data. Legislation regarding access to schools requires the necessary police checks before Research Assistants can enter the schools. This resulted in a 6 month extension on the research to allow for the transition periods where new staff joined the research at critical points.

The challenges of international collaboration are also to be better planned for and certainly not to be underestimated. Despite best measures to effect synergy and congruency between projects in NZ, UK and Australia, unexpected demands of host institutions and the vagaries of the research environments, often meant that collaboration in any meaningful way was made difficult. Research teams could find themselves working to different time scales, pursuing divergent agendas and sometimes frustrated at the difficulties of communicating over distance despite the advances of modern technology. There is no substitute for personal face to face contact – the costs and opportunities for these to occur need further attention if international collaborations are to succeed.

7. Other issues and unexpected outcomes

Please describe any outcomes of your research, beneficial or otherwise that were not expected at the outset or other issues which were important to the research, where these are not addressed above. Further details should be included in the main report.

Whilst the extent to which girls and young women experience body dissatisfaction has been well documented in wider literature, it was

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an unexpected outcome of the research to find that boys demonstrated high levels of dissatisfaction with the appearance of their bodies.

The importance, authority and credibility now given by children/pupils and parents to the health messages transmitted through public/popular pedagogies (e.g., of the media - TV, film, etc.,) had not been fully appreciated. Such pedagogies not only present many new challenges to researchers and teachers as to how they are to better conceptualise and address ‘formal education’, but also as to how and where Governments should direct attention and resource with respect to health issues.

8. Contributions to ESRC Programmes

If your project was part of an ESRC Research Programme, please describe your contributions to the Programme’s overall objectives, and note any impacts on your project resulting from your involvement.

NA

9. Nominated Rapporteur

Please suggest the name of one person who would be suitable to act as an independent rapporteur for your project. Please state full address and telephone number.

Dr Carrie Paetcher Professor and dean of the graduate schoolGoldsmiths, University of London, New Cross London SE14 6NW

Tel 020 7919 7355 Email [email protected]

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10. Nominated User Rapporteur (Optional)

Please suggest the name of one non-academic user who would be suitable to act as an independent rapporteur for your project. Please state full address and telephone number.

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FULL RESEARCH REPORT

BACKGROUND

Recently, schools in many westernised societies have been expected, even obligated, to respond to claims that their populations are in the midst of an ‘obesity epidemic’ (see Evans, Rich, Davies and Allwood, 2008; Gard and Wright, 2005). Many governments have charged schools and other state agencies with responsibility for safeguarding young people’s health by monitoring and regulating their weight, physical activity patterns and diets. Such concerns are driving what we describe as ‘new health imperatives’ which prescribe the ‘lifestyle’ choices young people should make. The drive to tackle the putative ‘obesity epidemic’ has resulted in extensive government funding to support a number of health policies and school based initiatives (e.g., annual weight checks, fingerprint screening in school canteens, removal of vending machines). Preliminary studies by the research team (Evans, Rich, Davies and Allwood, 2008; Rich and Evans, 2009) alluded to the potentially deleterious effects of these policies on the lives of girls and young women, and its capacity to presage disordered eating. We have sought to build on this and others’ research (see Evans, Rich, Davies and Allwood, 2008; Gard and Wright, 2005; Burrows and Wright, 2007; Wright and Harwood, 2009) to explore more specifically how such health imperatives and their associated strategies are being adopted, adapted and re-contextualised in mainstream schools, and their impact on a diverse range of young people’s identities, health, well being and rights. In doing so, the research explored the range of cultural and institutional resources young people bring to school contexts in making sense of obesity policy and practice. To enable this we have drawn on an eclectic range of theory (e.g., Bernstein, Foucault) to better understand how ‘experience, structure and school culture come together’ (McLeod and Yates, 2006) in the construction, interpretation and enactment of new health imperatives associated with obesity (see outlet Evans, Rich and DePian 2009).

OBJECTIVES

i) Identify how messages derived from public discourse around obesity and health (new health imperatives) enter schools and are recontextualised within them as specific pedagogic discourse;

Objective met. Analyses of school documents (websites, policy materials) alongside interviews with staff across a range of school types has produced rich data sets revealing the complex and multiple ways in which obesity discourse is recontextualised in school and the mechanisms through which this occurs (see results section 1).

ii) Investigate the cultural and institutional resources upon which young people draw (e.g. from family, peers, websites, video games, TV, film, magazines and school) to make sense of new health imperatives;

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This objective has been achieved through analyses of survey responses of 1176 young people along with 90 qualitative interviews across a diverse range of socio-cultural categories. The study has produced one the largest data sets internationally on young people’s learning about health in terms of registering the resources young people draw upon to make sense of official health policy and practice in schools.

iii) Identify young people’s current understandings of health, in terms of how they interpret and negotiate new health imperatives, and how this has shaped their attitudes to, and understandings of, their bodies;

This objective has been met through statistical analysis of survey data using SPSS and in depth interviews registering student understandings and attitudes toward health, physical activity, and current programs within their schools.

iv) Investigate the impact of students’ gender, cultural, and class identities on these processes;

Data are still being analysed and prepared for publication, however, preliminary results reveal that young people have vastly different experiences of new health imperatives, depending on their gender, social class and ethnic backgrounds and experience of particular forms of schooling, family and community. Survey results have allowed us to register the broad demographic patterns associated with learning new health imperatives. Ongoing analysis of qualitative data derived from some 90 students will provide further detailed insight into the complexities of these inter-relationships.

v) To identify the measures that might be taken by schools, teachers and other health professionals to address health issues in ways which do not damage young people’s relationships with food, exercise and their embodied identities and therefore contribute to their quality of life;

Using narrative techniques we are currently exploring the possibility of translating interview data into ‘narrative’ resources for schools, initially through a pilot scheme with schools that took part in the research. We have been invited to disseminate this work in a new book on narratives in PE intended for pre-service teachers and students entitle ‘Stories of Difference in PE, Youth Sport and Health’ (see Rich, forthcoming).

METHODS

Previous research on body image, obesity and eating disorders has tended to focus on individuals at the extreme ends of body size. Expanding on prior work, we have focused on the majority who are neither necessarily extremely thin nor fat (or obese) and explore these themes across broader and diverse populations. In the UK study, questionnaire and interview data from teachers and pupils aged between 9-16, were collected across a sample of 8 secondary schools. In addition to this, at each school, copies of health and PE programmes, school policies, textbooks, websites and other relevant resources were collected. These were analysed to explore the various health imperatives embedded in these texts, and the ways in which they offer resources to

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assess and evaluate ‘health’. The 8 schools were chosen to reflect a range of social, cultural and policy contexts (see appendix) enabling the in-depth analysis required to capture the interplay between cultural forces, social institutions and identities (see De-Pian et al, 2008).

Figure 1 - Breakdown of data setscountry questionnaire Interviews with

studentsInterviews with school staff

UK 1176 90 19Australia 330 66 24New Zealand 795 30 12TOTALS 2301 186 55

Survey data were analysed using SPSS and Qualitative data coded using NVIVO (qualitative analysis software). In this report we make reference to the findings in the UK context.

RESULTS

1) THE RECONTEXUALISATION OF NEW IMPERATIVES IN SCHOOLS

Analyses have highlighted the potency of new health imperatives and their impact on the attitudes, activities and interactions of teachers and pupils in schools. We have examined both the specific effects of localised school practices in addition to general policy/processes required of schools.

Although operationalised in markedly different ways, schools enact new health imperatives through a range of regulative and surveillant practices which monitor young people’s bodies and health behaviours (see Rich et al, in press, b).

These practices included:

- Lunch box inspections - Weighing (38% of students in the research had been weighed at school) - Fruit snacks - Monitoring packed lunch boxes - Banning of fizzy drinks/snacks/vending machines - Fingerprint scanning to monitor canteen purchases - Moral commentary on students health / bodies / practices

Survey data indicated that students learnt about health in schools via both pedagogical practice (teachers, 59.9%) and official curricular (PE lessons 55.3%, science lessons 44.4%, PSHE 36.2%) but also the more informal school contexts of peer culture (36.2%).

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In each school ‘health education’ had to engage with broader educational priorities and aspirations, which produced different possibilities, subjectivities and futures for its pupils.

The implementation of obesity policy and associated body pedagogies is never predictable or straightforward but instead recontextualised in schools in different ways (see Evans, Davies, Rich and De-Pian, 2009). The following ‘recontextualisations’ of health policy have been registered:

Hidden performative pedagogies – In some schools obesity messages are articulated essentially in ‘hidden form’ - teachers expressing them through a ‘performance discourse’, as something achieved indirectly through being actively involved in sport. Health discourse is seen as speaking to pupils but not of them, having only indirect relationship to the contingences of their family cultures and social class lifestyles. This recontextualisation was present in the independent schools in our study, where obesity was not perceived to be a priority health concern, occupying a relatively unimportant position ‘explicitly’ in the formal school curriculum in respect of its other dominant academic purposes and sporting ethos. Instead, ‘health’ concerns were hidden in its performative practices (around sport) which were seen as both extension and enrichment of the cultures of family and home.

Regionalised policy – In other schools, health policy is ‘regionalised’, that is to say, dealt with across many areas of the curriculum and is concerned with ‘holistic’ alignment, ‘correction’ and ‘enhancement’ of health behaviour. This was reflected in a whole school approach to promoting new health imperatives, involving measures ranging from the regulation of canteen behaviours to the provision of official ‘health’ curricular. Schools adopting regionalised policy often pursued the ‘healthy pupil’ as a condition aligned with being ‘a good pupil’, discursively if not medically healthy. This approach tended to reflect a strongly regulative and interventionist approach towards the imperatives associated with weight loss.

Extended and aligned policy: In this recontextualisation ‘health’ is about enhancement and correction through educative alignment of school and family pedagogy. Health policy of this kind appears to actively shape and extend the relationship between families and schools in two key ways: 1. Parents are actively brought into school policy making processes (e.g., occupying a position on school health committees); 2. Students are seen as ‘message carriers’ deemed responsible for taking health messages from schools into family environments to actively influence family health behaviours. This recontextualisation reveals the extent to which health policy not only impacts on health education, but can change the operation of aspects of school life in a broader sense.

Amalgamated Pedagogies: Health imperatives are accommodated discursively (or interpolated) within other ‘texts’ evident in schools. For example, in one case, health was nurtured through a broader school emphasis on ‘therapeutic education’ in which interpersonal communication in which children’s feelings, fantasies, fears and aspirations were expected to be made public and brought to the fore (in this case to talk openly about body and health concerns).

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Discrete Pedagogies/policy – this approach restricted ‘health education’ to discrete areas of the curriculum e.g., Personal and Social Education. New health imperatives were accorded relatively low status in terms of resource allocation and focused on offering direct intervention addressing variations on a perceived gap between ‘real’ and ‘ideal’ diets and other health behaviours/lives.

Restricted/Reparative’ Pedagogies – this approach was evident in those schools located in less affluent areas. For example, in the inner city secondary school children were considered to be leading impoverished lives. In these contexts, there may be a commitment to health but no explicit curriculum around obesity, rather one which focuses on perceived local health priorities such as drugs and pregnancy. Whilst opportunities for sport and activity provided by the school were seen as vehicles for health they were seen as compensation for inadequate homes and community rather than extensions of them (and their resources and cultures), with no expectation they would continue with them outside school. Health knowledge offered prevention and protection from specific ills of local working class life and was experienced by pupils as problematic, constituting deviation from publicly sanctioned health agendas (i.e., around obesity diet and weight loss).

2. CULTURAL AND INSTITUTIONAL RESOURCES YOUNG PEOPLE DRAW UPON IN NEGOTIATING NEW HEALTH IMPERATIVES

Our data suggest that readings of school ‘official health knowledge’ is neither straightforwardly reproduced nor necessarily refracted in the actions, choice and identities of students. Examination of the reconfigurations and engagements with new health imperatives has revealed a complex web of relationships between formal schooling and other social sties, such as the media, family and peers. Young people report experiencing multiple meanings (connected to health and the body) simultaneously across these sites, not all of which are afforded equal levels of interest, status or influence.

Far from being an act of individual effort, young people’s opportunities to ‘be healthy’ and make sense of obesity policy and pedagogy, are heavily influence by the socio-cultural resources they have access to across multiple sites of learning.

The health messages young people receive from schools are set alongside a range of other influences and messages emanating from popular culture, family, friends and elsewhere. Many young people thus bring an already formed view of ‘acceptable/healthy bodies’ to schools, some of which collide with the schools ‘official’ views.

2.1 Family Pedagogies, class and economies of difference

Both survey and interview data revealed the importance of family pedagogies in both learning about health and providing the cultural and economic resources for young

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people to enact the health imperatives expected of them by schools. When asked to report then source of their ideas around ‘health’, parental influences (mum 61.7%, dad 42.4%) were found to be more important than school (teachers 30.7%). 44% of our cohort had learnt specifically about obesity from their mums reiterating the cultural assumptions about a Mother’s role in the regulation of children’s health (see also Walkerdine, 2009; Ringrose and Walkerdine, 2008). Teachers (38.2%) figured more strongly in young people’s learning specifically about obesity.

Family pedagogies are significant in that some children were evidently more able to appropriate and accept obesity discourse and its imperatives because they had received at home a version of the ‘official pedagogic practice’ (Bernstein, 1990: 176) found in schools. For example, students in the independent schools described ‘thin bodies’ as evidence not only of good health but of good citizenship, as someone who cares for their body in line with middle class values. Many referred to the ample sport and leisure opportunities available to them in both their family and school life, which offered cultural enrichment, a continuation of ‘the making up of the middle class child’ (Vincent and Ball, 2007).

For others, family and social class orientations may differ greatly to those which are offered through official pedagogies of schools, restricting the possibility to enact or accept health imperatives. Economic and symbolic resources intersect in ways which restrict or make possible the opportunity for young people to engage with the official health practices expected of them by official and popular pedagogies. For example, in School X, an inner city, co-ed comprehensive school for pupils aged 11-18 from a variety of cultural but mostly working class backgrounds. Children in this school were given the health knowledge thought to help them deal with, avoid or repair transgressions/pathologies in their local cultures (primarily related to pregnancy and drugs) rather than focus on obesity issues. Young people’s decision’s not to exercise regularly or eat ‘good’ food far from being a ‘lack of individual effort’ was often rationalised in terms of lack of money, perceived risk, parental concern and the failings of health education. Whilst students were aware of what was required to be defined as a ‘healthy student’ many felt it was something unattainable and over which they had little or no control, requiring opportunity and levels of investment of time, effort, and, critically, money, that they simply did not possess.

people round here they can’t pay for enough like sports, yeah, you just go onto the field, but its dangerous these days so most parents don’t want them going out on the streets and then so (Ryan).

These socio-cultural factors provided students with a differentiated sense of themselves as failing, and restricted their ‘imagined futures’ (McLeod and Yates, 2009) in terms of being unable to see themselves or having the opportunities to achieve good health (see Evans, et al., 2009)

Collectively, the data reveal that whilst health discourse espouse health opportunities for all (through improved diets and more exercise) traditional inequalities around gender, class and ethnicity etc are being ‘remade’ through the recontextualisation of health imperatives.

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2.2 Popular Pedagogies and Media resources

Survey respondents identified media sites as significant resources for learning about health (e.g. TV, 37.5% and Internet 20.5%) and specifically obesity (friends 35.2%, newspapers 38%, Internet 28.4% and films 12.25%). These findings endorse the view that media texts are becoming increasingly significant in the construction of pedagogies of health and obesity, specifying orientations towards the body in terms of its maintenance, development, enrichment and repair (see Rich, et al, 2009a). Over a third of the study sample reported wanting to lose weight because of media influences. This was a particularly difficult process for girls where there was pressure to be neither too fat nor too thin creating what we describe as ‘body burdens’ (see Rich et al, 2009b and Rich, et al, in press b).

2.3 Peer Pedagogy

Peer group relations serve as crucial pedagogic sites, threatening or offering potential independence from or alternatives or resistance to official pedagogic practice. Over a third (32.8%) of survey respondents identified friends as an important sources for learning about health, mediating official health pedagogy in ways not always conducive to wellbeing. Analyses of interview data suggest peer culture played a significant role in the formation of embodied identities particularly in terms of the moral commentary young people expressed about other’s bodies.

3. THE IMPACT OF NEW HEALTH IMPERATIVES ON YOUNG PEOPLE’S UNDERSTANDINGS OF HEALTH AND EMBODIED IDENTITIES

3.1 Understandings of health

Overwhelmingly, students understandings of health reflect the messages found in new health imperatives; reducing complex matters of health to ‘weight issues’

72.5% of survey respondents suggested that a person’s weight or size is linked to their ‘health’. Students reported that being healthy was important to them because of reasons connected with appearance (60%), much more so than health related reasons such as protection from disease (30.3%) and life (e.g. longevity 25.9%). When asked in the survey ‘what does it means to be healthy?’ 44.5% made reference to the imperative of exercise, 24.9% made reference to diet and 30.3% of being a particular body size or shape. 41.3% of students felt they would be healthier if they exercised more, and 67.2% if they changed their diet. Rather less (30.3%) made reference to broader concepts of health such as ‘well being’ (30.3%), positive self perception (3.7%) or social reasons (0.2%). These understandings appeared to shape young people’s limited perception of fatness and obesity which was seen either as a disease category or associated with negative characteristics such as lack of care, irresponsibility and laziness.

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3.2 Body Burdens: The Enactment of health imperatives

The young people in our study reported engaging in extensive levels of surveillance, regulation and monitoring of their own and their peers bodies to reach the expectations of new health imperative (see Rich et al, in press a). These included:

Self-monitoring – e.g. regularly weighing themselves Self-evaluation – e.g. often negative moral evaluation of their bodies ‘I’m too

fat’ ‘I’m lazy’ Self-Regulation – e.g. dieting, skipping meals, losing weight Evaluation of other children’s bodies - e.g. commenting on others’ weight

New health imperatives are heavily inflected with class, ethnic and cultural differentiations.

Despite the emphasis in contemporary society on individual choice, little seems to have changed in terms of the narrow expectations placed on girls’ bodies and health behaviours. Girls in the study reported excessive monitoring and regulation of their bodies and diets in an effort to achieve some form of distinction and differentiation through their bodies. In this sense, limiting expectations about the ‘female body’ were being reformed and legitimated through the coming together of new health imperatives, peer culture and consumer / media imagery (Rich et al, in press b).

Data revealed how young people’s relationships with their bodies is strongly nurtured by relationships and orientations prevailing within and between the pedagogies of the family, school and popular culture (media). These relationships are significant in the process of identity formation and in how these young people learned to think of their physicality and the values given to it. Alarmingly, over a quarter (26.1%) of the young people in our research felt that they needed to lose weight because they ‘felt fat’. 77.6% of our respondents reported that they have never tried to put weight on, the majority of students were instead focused on losing weight (90.4%). This was influenced by others’ evaluations of their bodies. Students reported a range of individuals made comments about their weight or size, including; Friends (39%), Mum (33%), Dad (25.6%), Other family (22%) People who don’t like me (20.6%), People I don’t like (14.9%), doctors (7.6%), sports coaches (6.7%), Teachers (3.4%) and carers (2.1%)

Interview analysis revealed that concerns associated with obesity, are not confined to ‘health’ or ‘medical’ worries but are intimately connected to what Mcleod and Yates (2006: 6) refer to as ‘imagined futures’. In this sense, different body types were associated with different possible futures or pathways. The comments of teachers, parents and friends were significant in reinforcing notions of future risk constructed through new health imperatives. For example, one teacher described how she purposefully tried to instil a sense of fear:

‘this is a lifetime and if you get it wrong for the rest of your life and if you choose to, then you’ve got nobody to blame but yourself when you cut your life short. I’m not the most PC person in the world. (Pamela, food technology teacher)’

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‘Health fears’ were therefore significant in the formation of young people’s sense of who they were and their future life plans. Students reported worrying a great deal about what their future lives would be like if they were to gain weight. This generated varying degrees of psychological and social stress, which far from improving health had a negative effect on young people’s well being.

- Anger- Anxiety - Guilt - Pity - Shame - Disgust - Fear - Horror - Abjection - Repulsion

3.3 Embodied identities:

The pervasiveness of the surveillance which accompanies new health imperatives is such that the majority of young people in our research were preoccupied with their body size, shape and weight in some way.

A high percentage of our respondents reported that they thought about their bodies sometimes (51.5%) or all of the time (34.8%). Only a small proportion of the respondents (12.2%) stated that they never thought about their bodies. Many of those who think about the way they look and wanted to change something, reported wanting to change to become thinner (56.3%) or change particular body parts (49.2%). Preliminary analysis of the data revealed that over half of the young people in our research had experienced some degree of body dissatisfaction with regards their weight. 15.8% were never happy about their current weight/size and 39.6% only sometimes happy with their current weight/size. 43.1% reported that they were happy with their weight/size all the time. Obesity discourse had, it seemed, granted moral licence for people to monitor, regulate and comment on others’ bodies, with over a third of our sample (38.6% of the young people) having experience of being called names about their weight/size. Rather alarmingly, for 8.2% of the sample, this was something they experienced ‘all the time’ revealing the extent of social stigma attached to weight, whist others (11.5%) who had been ‘picked on because of their weight/size’ reported experiencing some kind of physical abuse. Analyses of the UK questionnaire responses of 1167 students, revealed three distinctive orientations towards the embodied self (see also De-Pian, 2008a). A small, but nonetheless worrying number of children registered what we describe as having Troubled Bodies, who reported that they were never happy with their weight or size (15.8% of the cohort) and never felt good about their bodies. Most ‘troubled bodies’ were likely to be 13-14 year olds. The findings challenged the view that body dissatisfaction remains a problem mostly for young girls, with just under a third of the respondents in this category located in an Independent Boys school. The second orientation towards the body, could be described as emboldened bodies, constituted by those (around 43.9% of the cohort) who responded that they always are happy with their weight or

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size, and always felt good about their bodies. In contrast to our findings concerning ‘Troubled bodies’, gender, class and type of schooling together appear to be significant in determining how children and young people feel toward their embodied self. This category were likely to be aged 13, with parents or guardians in ‘middle class’ occupations and were of ‘normal weight’ BMI (Body Mass Index). These ‘bodies’ are more able to achieve a consonance between experienced corporeality and prevailing cultural (and sub cultural) norms, thus do not display the levels of body dissatisfaction identified by those with troubled bodies. The final category, Insouciant Bodies; these young people (around 40.3% of the cohort) appeared neither completely satisfied with their bodies nor preoccupied with them. They suggest that while it may be possible to conceptualise health imperatives associated with obesity discourse as all pervasive, we clearly can not claim or assume that it is monolithic. Consequently, we may consider the above category of youth as dissatisfied but ‘disengaged’ bodies.

Activities

- Cross cultural research findings were synthesised at a symposium entitled ‘Global healthscapes, education and cultural reproduction: body pedagogies, social class and culture’ at the British Educational Research Association conference in 2009. This included full papers from colleagues conducting parallel projects in Australia and New Zealand.

- The principal applicant was invited to act as a member of the ESRC funded seminar series ‘Young women in Movement’ 2009-2011 at Goldsmiths University and present research finding in this series.

- The research has led to the principal applicant being a co-applicant on a successful bid for an ESRC seminar series on Fat Studies and Health at Every Size Research findings from this study will be disseminated at forthcoming seminars (see Rich and Evans, 2009b).

Outputs

- Datasets deposited in the ESRC data archive - 9 conference papers, 2 journal articles and 6 book chapters based on the

study have to date been written (all are referenced in the bibliography) - Two book proposals are being developed to disseminate research findings - A special edition of Discourse 2012 will report findings from the research

in the UK , Australia and New Zealand.

Impact

Theoretical ideas, concepts and models emerging from the work have engaged the interests of research communities beyond health (e.g., the wider educational and sociology communities) internationally; reflected in invitations to contribute to key publications, key note presentations and seminars (as referenced below). Co-applicant Professor John Evans will disseminate findings Internationally in April 2010 having been offered a distinguished fellowship at the University of Auckland. Research findings are also being disseminated to professional audiences to ensure impact on

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future teachers of health and PE, including a forthcoming book chapter in a textbook for teachers and coaches ‘Introduction to Sport Pedagogy for Teachers and Coaches: Effective learners in physical education and youth sport’ edited by Professor Kathy Armour. The research is continuing to generate media interest including appearances by the research team on BBC’s The Big Questions (15/03/2009) and BBC Radio 4 (22/11/2007) and interest from the Times Educational Supplement.

Future Research Priorities

The complex mediations around health imperatives highlight the need for future research which addresses the processes of decision making beyond schooling: Most notably, reference to the sites of influence including the media, family and beyond, point towards the need for further research which attempts to understand decision making processes in the context of a more ephemeral society in which young people are becoming active co-constructors of health knowledge through peer culture and the presence of social media.

Our study found that many young people experience psychological and social distress caused by fears associated with fatness. Although the emotive language drawn upon in their assumptions about weight has been registered in this study, much further research is needed to explore the impact this has on young people in terms of their psychological well being, particularly in light of evidence of increasing levels of depression and bullying experienced by young people.

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Bibliography

Burrows, L., & Wright, J. (2007). Prescribing practices: Shaping healthy children in schools. The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 15(1), 83-98.

Burrows L., Cliff, ., De-Pian, L., Evans, J., Harwood, V., McCormack, J., Rich, E. & Wright, J. (2008) Researching the new health imperatives in schools: stories from the field. Australian Association for Research in Education conference, Brisbane, December 3.

De-Pian, L., Evans, J., and Rich, E. (2008a) Mediating Health? A preliminary analysis of how social class and culture refracted through different forms of schooling are reflected in young people’s actions toward their bodies and their health. Australian Association for Research in Education conference, Brisbane, December 3

De-Pian, L., Evans, J., and Rich, E. (2008b) Researching the new health imperatives in schools: Understanding Young People’s decision making about health as an embodied social process: stories from the field. Australian Association for Research in Education conference, Brisbane, December 3.

Evans, J., Rich, E., Davies, B., and Allwood, R. (2008) Education, Disordered eating and Obesity Discourse: Fat Fabrications. Routledge. London and New York

Evans, J., Davies, B. and Rich, E. (2008) Bernstein, Body Pedagogies and the Corporeal Device, Fifth International Annual Basil Bernstein conference, Cardiff, July 12th-14th, 2008.

Evans, J., Davies, B., Rich, E., and DePian, L. (2009) Health Imperatives, Policy and the Corporeal Device: Schools, subjectivity and children’s health. Australian Association for Research in Education conference, Canberra, December 2009.

Evans, J., Rich, E., and De-Pian, L. (2009) Global Healthscapes, Education and Cultural Reproduction: The Conceptual Challenges for International, Collaborative, Comparative Research. British Educational Research Association annual conference, Manchester, September 2-6th, 2009.

Evans, J., Davies, B., and Rich, E (2009) The body made flesh: embodied learning and the corporeal device, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30(4): 391-406

Evans, J, Davies, B., Rich, E. and De Pian, L. (in press) Health Imperatives, Policy and the Corporeal Device: Schools, subjectivity and children’s health, special edition ‘contemporary school health policies, practices and pedagogies, Policy Futures in Education.

Evans, J. Rich, E and Davies, B (in press) Schooling the Body in a performative culture. In M.Apple, S.Ball and L. Armand Gandin (Eds) International Handbook of Research in Sociology of Education, Routledge, London.

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Evans, J., Davies, B., and Rich, E. (in press) Berstein, Body Pedagogies and the Corporeal Device. In G.Ivinson, B.Davies and J.Fitz (Eds) Knowldege and Identity: Bersteinian approaches and applications.

Gard, M. and Wright, J. (2005) The Obesity Epidemic: Science, Morality and Ideology. London: Routledge.

Kenway, J., Kraack, A., and Hickey-Moody, A. (2006) Masculinity Beyond the Metropolis, Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan

McLeod, J. and Yates, L. (2006) Making Modern Lives, Albany: State University of New York Press.

Rich, E. (forthcoming) Storying Health. In F.Dowling, H. Fitzgerald and A.Flintoff (Eds) Stories of Difference in PE, Youth Sport and Health. . Rich, E., and Evans, J. (forthcoming) Critical Health Pedagogies. In K. Armour (Eds) ‘Introduction to Sport Pedagogy for Teachers and Coaches: Effective learners in physical education and youth sport’

Rich, E. and Evans, J. (2009a) Now I am NO-body, see me for who I am: The paradox of performativity. Gender and Education, 21(1), pp 1-16

Rich, E., and Evans, J (2009b) Young people, class, schooling cultures and anti-obesity education. ESRC Seminar: Abject embodiment: Uneven targets of fat discrimination. 14th-15th January 2010, Durham University.

Rich, E., Evans, J., and De Pian, L. (2009a) Local Landscapes, media healthscapes and Schooling. British Educational Research Association annual conference, Manchester, September 2-6th, 2009.

Rich, E., Evans, J., and De Pian, L (2009b) Learning to be a healthy young woman: Body burdens and consumer culture. ESRC seminar series: young women in movement, sexualities, vulnerabilities, needs and norms. Goldsmiths University. 24th November 2009.

Rich, E., Evans, J., and De-Pian, L. (in press a) Children’s bodies, surveillance and the obesity crisis. In E.Rich, L.F.Monaghan and L.Aprhramor (Eds) Debating Obesity: Critical Perspectives. Routledge.

Rich, E., Evans, J., and De-Pian, L. (in press b) Public health discourse and young women’s engagement with exercise. In E. Kennedy and P. Markula (Eds) Women and Exercise: Qualitative Research on The Body Health and Consumerism. Routledege.

Ringrose, J. and V. Walkerdine (2008). Regulating the Abject. Feminist Media Studies 8(3): 227-246.

Vincent, C. and Ball, S. (2007) ‘Making up the Middle-Class Child: Families, Activities and Class Dispositions, Sociology, 41: 1061.

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Walkerdine, Valerie (2009) Biopedagogies and beyond in .Wright and V.Harwood (Eds) Biopolitics and The Obesity Epidemic: Governing Bodies, eds. J, 20 - 207. New York, Oxon: Routledge.

Wright, J and Harwood, V. (2009) (Eds.) Biopolitics and the ‘Obesity Epidemic’, London: Routledge.

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Appendix

Appendix 1

Table 1 – Frequencies, percentages and demographics of school sites

Frequency PercentValid

PercentCumulative

Percent

Valid X 192 16.3 16.3 16.3

B 259 22.0 22.0 38.4

G 143 12.2 12.2 50.5

L 81 6.9 6.9 57.4

W 25 2.1 2.1 59.5

F 151 12.8 12.8 72.4

R 66 5.6 5.6 78.0

H 259 22.0 22.0 100.0

Total 1176 100.0 100.0

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Table 2 – Frequencies and percentages of self-reported ethnicity of young people

Frequency Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid White British 798 67.9 71.7 71.7

White Irish 6 .5 .5 72.2

Other White 25 2.1 2.2 74.5

White and Black Caribbean

14 1.2 1.3 75.7

White and Black African 5 .4 .4 76.2

White and Asian 26 2.2 2.3 78.5

Other Mixed Background 21 1.8 1.9 80.4

Asian Indian 145 12.3 13.0 93.4

Asian Bangladeshi 21 1.8 1.9 95.3

Asian Pakistani 8 .7 .7 96.0

Other Asian Background 17 1.4 1.5 97.6

Black Caribbean 4 .3 .4 97.9

Black African 9 .8 .8 98.7

Other Black Background 2 .2 .2 98.9

Chinese 11 .9 1.0 99.9

Other Background 1 .1 .1 100.0

Total 1113 94.6 100.0Missing -1 63 5.4Total 1176 100.0

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Table 3 – Frequencies and percentages of self-reported age of young people

Frequency Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid 9 years 61 5.2 5.2 5.2

10 years 118 10.0 10.0 15.2

11 years 116 9.9 9.9 25.1

12 years 191 16.2 16.3 41.4

13 years 270 23.0 23.0 64.3

14 years 158 13.4 13.4 77.8

15 years 141 12.0 12.0 89.8

16 years 120 10.2 10.2 100.0

Total 1175 99.9 100.0Missing -1 1 .1Total 1176 100.0

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Appendix 2

Summary Description of Schools

School B = Large, independent, secondary school for boys (10-18 year olds). Sample includes 12-13 year olds and 15-16 year olds (Years 8 and 11).

School F = Large, independent, co-ed, preparatory school (4-11 year olds). Sample includes 9-11 year olds (Years 5 and 6).

School G = secondary school for girls (11-18 year olds). Sample includes 12-13 year olds and 15-16 year olds (Years 8 and 11).

School H = Large, co-ed, rural state middle school (11-14 year olds). Sample includes 11-14 year olds (Years 7-9).

School L = Large, co-ed, multi-ethnic, state middle school (11-14 year olds). Sample includes 12-13 year olds (Year 8).

School R = Large, co-ed, multi-ethnic, inner city, state primary school (4-11 year olds). Sample includes 9-11 year olds (Years 5 and 6).

School W = Very small, co-ed, middle class, rural/village, state primary school (4-11 year olds). Sample includes 9-11 year olds (Years 5 and 6).

School X = Large, co-ed, deprived, multi-ethnic, inner city college (11-16 year olds). Sample includes 13-15 year olds (Years 9 and 10).

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Documents

1reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/851747/4/FinalReport.doc · Web viewThis Report is an accurate statement of the objectives, conduct, results and outputs (to date) of the research project