The opportunities to participate in physical activity and sports can vary greatly across the different youth education institutions in Denmark, with upper-secondary school students (ages 15-20) generally having the most options while also possessing the best health and well-being.
Previously, employment of student-oriented, democratic workshops showed a feasible approach to health promotion in Danish upper-secondary schools. This study explores the wider application and feasibility in three different youth education settings: preparatory youth education, vocational education and a social and health care training programme. Working within a participatory research paradigm, the project has a focus on student and teacher inclusion, participation and contribution through the adapted democratically focused, innovative workshop design (see Frydendal Nielsen, 2015). Qualitative data (focus groups, interviews, observations and field notes) was collected from four case schools, with one of the schools being an upper secondary school similar to that of the previous research.
Focusing on enabling and constraining factors, the study is inspired by an Eliasian theoretical framework with the intention of analysing the power relations, established/outsider relations and interdependencies within and between the different school-figurations, supplemented by Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of communities in the liquid modern times.
Early findings show important enabling and constraining circumstances when implementing the approach in different school contexts; especially how teachers and central resource-persons are pivotal in the nonupper secondary settings, and the importance of workshop plasticity when applied in the vocational schools.