Citation

Teutsch F, Gugglberger L. Health Promot. Int. 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Department of Child and Adolescent Health, Nordbahnstr 51, Vienna, Austria.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/heapro/daz006

PMID

30793733

Abstract

Health Policies with school-wide effects have been shown to improve the health of students and school staff, but in practice, schools struggle with this approach. Ten Austrian schools which had recently adopted new time structure policies were investigated: On the basis of 19 interviews with school staff, we used thematic analysis to identify facilitating and hindering factors for the implementation processes. Furthermore, agency analysis was applied, in which the interviewees' use of language was interpreted to estimate their perception of their own agency in the context of policy change. We found that in schools where policy changes were perceived as successfully implemented, staff was convinced of the benefits. In these schools, time structures were understood to directly influence learning and teaching processes and staff members showed a strong feeling of agency. On the other hand, schools were confronted with hindering factors similar to those known from the implementation of other health policies. The results are discussed in the light of current implementation practices, and conclusions for practitioners are drawn.

© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Language: en

Keywords

qualitative methods; school health promotion; structural changes; time