Health skills: the power to choose

Abstract

IN the current debate about health education and health promotion, it is difficult to see where school health education fits. Whether the route to health is through social engineering, political activism, razzmatazz, community activism or individual responsibility, it seems clear, since it is mentioned so frequently in the literature, that self-empowerment is central to all. But what is self-empowerment, a phrase which is widely used although often misun derstood ? And how, in practice, can it be developed in secondary schools? This article describes five cri teria for self-empowered behaviour and relates them to the experience gained during the project Lifeskills and health education in the secondary school.