Health Education Research Vol.20 no.4, © Oxford University Press 2005; All rights reserved
Young-Minds.Net/Lessons Learnt: Student Participation, Action and Cross-cultural Collaboration in a Virtual Classroom
Venka Simovska and Bjarne Bruun Jensen Danish University of Education Press,Copenhagen, 2003 140 pp. ISBN 877613006-1.
This book presents an account of a cross-cultural project which explored the links between youth, culture and the use of alcohol. ‘Young Minds’ was a web-based project in which young people in Denmark, the Czech Republic, Macedonia and Sweden participated through activities in their classrooms, through contributions to the project website, and through participation in a WHO conference in Stockholm where they expressed their views to Ministers. The ‘Young Minds’ project took place from the initial planning periods in June 2000, through classroom work and collaborative web-based activity until January 2001, concluding with the WHO Ministerial Stockholm conference in February 2001, which was attended by some of the students who were able to keep in touch with their peers at home through the project website. The project was clearly multi-faceted, and the book is of interest in that it presents the context of the European Project, the theoretical framework for the study, the methods used to capture and analyse the data, the findings from the different elements of the study, and some reflections on the lessons learned.The three main aims of the project were to develop, explore and document democratic, participatory and action-oriented health education and promotion in schools; to research the interplay between this approach with the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and cross-cultural collaboration; and to facilitate the articulation of young people's voices with regard to alcohol consumption among young people. The findings indicated that the project did successfully provide a framework for the students to develop an open, critical and reflective action orientation to the issues. Both students and teachers reported that the experience had been positive, although teachers highlighted some tensions, not only in the demands of coordinating such a project with ICT, but also in the shifts in their roles and degrees of ‘control’.
The theoretical framework that underpinned the project is described as reflecting three key concepts: the democratic approach to health education and promotion; student participation and action; and the IVAC (investigation–vision–action–change) approach to structuring school projects in this area. Chapter 3 presents a detailed discussion of each of these elements, supported by appropriate references to the wider literature, which is of particular interest in establishing a theoretical basis for such activity. It argues for ‘the need to offer alternatives to the traditional, moralizing behaviour modification oriented health education’ (p. 44) which are built on a professional foundation. It also emphasizes the importance of knowledge content, in this case the knowledge of the causes, effects, visions and strategies for change in young people's use of alcohol. The discussion also raises issues about the role of the teachers in supporting the students' exploration of these aspects of their understanding of alcohol use.
The findings of the project evaluation are presented in two chapters, one focusing on the development of the website, the other on the student and teachers' perspectives on the approach. ICT was used as a source of information; as a medium for presenting students' findings, attitudes, views and ideas; as a communication platform for the participants; and as a collaboration platform for joint activities. The evaluation of the website is presented as a discussion of the quantitative measures of messages, responses and topics discussed, as well as descriptions of the types of issues raised for discussion and investigation by the students. Questions such as ‘How much do we drink?’, ‘Why do we drink?’, ‘What are the effects of drinking?’ and ‘What are our visions for the future?’, were starting points for students' activities such as local, national and cross-cultural surveys and interviews with peers and adults in their communities. The different activities in the classes were supported by discussion forums on the website which explored themes such as reasons for drinking, related effects, legislation, price, individual choice and equity issues which included social status of people with drinking problems. The analysis of the range of student activity and discussion indicated that their ‘knowledge’ about the issues encompassed knowledge about effects, knowledge about causes, and knowledge about alternatives and visions. They demonstrated knowledge of both positive and negative consequences, and engaged in critical reflection on social, cultural and economic determinants of alcohol consumption. The students initiated actions in their own schools in order to address local school policies and everyday practices, and raise awareness of attitudes and behaviours of students, teachers and parents (from guidelines for ‘smart parties’ to direct questions to government officials).
The second chapter of findings focuses on the perspectives of the students and teachers involved in the project as explored in interviews. Teachers described their involvement in the underlying aims of the project to promote students' democratic, active participation, as well as promote knowledge of alcohol use. This was often challenging to their more traditional roles, particularly in sensitive areas such as this, and they commented on their own needs to develop more inclusive teaching strategies in the future. Students responded positively to the opportunity to develop and articulate their views, particularly in an international context where they were able to consider other people's practices and approaches to similar issues. The reported success of the project related to the nature of the ‘authentic, self-regulated and intentional learning’, expressed by Rogoff as ‘"minds-on", purposeful learning through reflective participation in socially structured practices’ (p. 117).
The final section of the book is in the form of Appendices which present pictures of the students taking part in the Stockholm conference presentation, exhibition and conversations with Ministers and officials, and some extracts of teachers' web reflections on the project.
As a teacher educator who is not a specialist in the area of health education and promotion, I found this book to be of interest in its account of a cross-cultural project which drew upon the affordances of ICT and face-to-face meetings to support the particular focus of young people's understandings of the use of alcohol. The extracts of the discussion forums, interviews and conference activities offered insights into the responses and ideas of the students and teachers participating in the project. It was also very useful to have a detailed discussion of the theoretical framework for the range of activities.
The weakness of the book lies in its structure. In its current form, it is presented as a report of the evaluation of the project, and, rightly for such a report, addresses a range of details of the conduct, theory, methodology and findings. Such a structure is therefore useful for a reader who has an interest in the book as an evaluation report with a research perspective. If the book is to engage the interest and attention of a wider audience, it might have benefited from reworking, editing and indexing in order to make the key concepts, findings and descriptions of the students' learning more immediate and accessible. The evaluation and research framework for the study could have been elaborated upon and linked to publications of the findings in peer-reviewed, scholarly journals.
Despite this reservation about the structural presentation, I found the book to be a valuable account of a project that had clear conceptual underpinning, active and authentic use of ICT, and engaging outcomes for the participants. It is a useful resource for those engaged in health education, as well as a lively case study of a successful multi-faceted, cross-cultural project.
Reader in ICT in Education, Education Research Centre, University of Brighton
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