GROW ‑Integrated health education in upper secondary school

 
In the GROW project, upper secondary school students explore and reflect on health through the caring science concepts of vitality and life rhythm. The aim is to highlight young people’s own perspectives on what it means to feel well, and to provide them with tools to understand health in a broader sense than purely physical indicators. The focus is on integrating bodily, social, and existential dimensions of health into upper secondary school education.

The project has been developed through a long-term collaboration between researchers at Mid Sweden University and upper secondary school teachers, with a strong anchoring in educational practice and in line with the upcoming curriculum reform (Gy25). The collaboration includes several subjects: Swedish, Physical Education and Health, and Health and Social Care. This interdisciplinary approach makes it possible to address health from multiple perspectives and to create a holistic understanding closely connected to students’ everyday lives.

The pedagogical design is built on variation and creativity. Students work both individually and in groups. The methods are multimodal, enabling students with different forms of expression to contribute. In this way, health becomes not only a subject to learn about, but also something to learn in and through.

For research, this means that there is a rich body of empirical material. This material forms the basis for analyses of how young people conceptualize health, what themes emerge, and how the caring science concepts can serve as tools in teaching. The project is thus both research-driven and practice-oriented, with the potential to contribute to school development, didactic innovation, and a deeper understanding of young people’s perspectives on health.

As a student at Mid Sweden University, you are offered the opportunity to participate in this ongoing research project. Data is continuously collected, which means that you can directly engage in the analysis and interpretation of the material. Depending on your interests, you may focus on different themes, for example how young people express existential aspects of health, or how interdisciplinary teaching fosters new ways of learning about health.

The project is well suited for independent studies at bachelor’s, master’s, and postgraduate levels. By taking part, you contribute to the project’s development while also gaining insight into how research collaboration between universities and schools can be conducted in practice. This provides concrete experience in analyzing and generating knowledge in a real-world context, with results that can directly benefit both teaching and students’ health.