[School health education: practices and representations of primary school teachers]

A better understanding of primary school teachers' practices and representations toward health education (HE), and identification of individual or structural resistance as well as the partnership and training needs all constitute important goals in HE research. A quantitative study was conducted between April and December 2001 on a representative sample of the population of primary school teachers (n = 673) in the Auvergne region. The results demonstrate that the majority of teachers declare practicing and implementing HE. The approach is primarily thematic, essentially limited to a few lessons since it is only integrated into a broader project 20% of the time. 30% of teachers work in partnership, mainly with partners in school health; however, parents are rarely involved in HE activities. Parameters which influence the teachers' practices and representations are: (1) prioritizing work within an educational network and an inter-communal pedagogical regrouping, with the advantage that there are a greater number of teachers to do HE in these schools than in others, and (2) receiving initial or in-service training. These results suggest that a policy aiming to generalize the inclusion of HE in French primary schools must develop teacher training as well as support and accompany the collective dynamics within schools.