Dr Emily presented at the Educating for Hope Research Symposium on 9 May, 2025. She presented some PhD findings regarding Teaching Perspectives of Gender and Sexuality in Health Education.
Abstract: Teaching Perspectives of Gender and Sexuality in Health Education
This doctoral study explored the worldview and personal beliefs of Western Australian (WA) health teachers and how these beliefs and views affected their delivery of the personal, social and community health (PSCH) strand of the Health and Physical Education (HPE) Western Australian Curriculum (WAC).
International and Australian researchers have reported links between teachers’ belief systems, their broader worldview, and their professional pedagogical practices. This is of particular interest when considering the role health education plays in the development of community in our schools.
This study was conducted using a constructivist grounded theory qualitative research methodology, and semi-structured interviews were used to gather data about the experiences and perceptions of WA health teachers during the implementation phase of the WAC. This approach was chosen as it was concerned with investigating perspectives and drawing out themes to inform a theory and consequent theoretical framework.
The aim of this study was to examine the beliefs of teachers when delivering the new health curriculum in WA. Previous researchers had found that teachers have expressed feelings of frustration, nervousness, and of being overwhelmed when implementing a new curriculum, in particular when the curriculum is innovative and not consistent with their own worldview.
Following the expressed interests of the participants, this research concentrated on the specific areas of health teaching that teachers felt they needed assistance with, which led to seeking a closer understanding of the role of the PSCH teacher as a facilitator of moral character development in young people, and insight into the notion of neutrality in schools.
The teachers in this study believed their work had significantly changed due to recent curriculum reform and they wanted assistance, guidance, and support. The addition of new content to the PSCH curriculum had led to teachers feeling overwhelmed and confused and most regarded the task of interpretation to be of utmost importance.
A key issue in this study was health teachers’ personal perspectives: what they were, how they were formed, and the influence they had in the participants’ health education teaching. This led to the formulation of the conceptual theory ‘Health education teaching perspectives’: Interplay between personal perspectives and curriculum enactment. This theory reveals health teachers’ experiences as they worked out what they were supposed to say when enacting the curriculum. The precursors to the theory were that they all had personal perspectives, they all felt concerned about interpreting the curriculum, and translating it into lessons, while often feeling unsure about what was expected of them.
In addition to the participants feeling unsure, they generally felt unsupported and were conscious of the extremely low value that was being placed on health education by parents and school leaders.
This research has afforded me the opportunity to reflect on the incredibly important role an in-depth understanding of worldview plays when approaching curriculum and in teaching practice. As a leader in education I will use this research to help Christian schools approach health education in a supported way, using a whole school approach.
