Social media in school health promotion: the need for institutional and professional development

The progressive increase in youth use of social media can have implications for health. This study explores how school professionals working with health promotion (HP) position their practices at the intersection between the challenges and potential opportunities posed by social media. Empirical data were produced from seventeen semi-structured interviews with various school professionals from state-funded and private schools in Sweden where HP is a shared responsibility among many professionals including nurses, psychologists, special educators, principals and teachers. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The analysis was informed by practice theory. Three themes were generated: (i) navigating an ambiguous terrain of professional practice; (ii) reconfiguring HP practice in relation to student social media use and (iii) social media as resources for HP. The findings indicate that school professionals are reconfiguring HP practice around the increased challenges invoked by students' social media use but are also aware that social media can be fruitfully operationalized in school HP. Professional attempts at harnessing the health-promoting potential of social media are limited to individual initiatives, possibly in relation to a lack of clear policy directives that inform actions and assign responsibilities where social media are concerned. School professionals recognize a need for professional learning to keep abreast of students' highly dynamic use of social media. The study underscores the need for professional development but argues that this development needs to be grounded in a comparable institutional one, for example by reformulating and updating policies to be more professionally supportive.