Health-promoting school
We study how the whole school community — teaching, culture and practices, the environment, and collaboration with homes — can support health promotion, following the whole-school approach.
This project has its roots in Marjorita Sormunen’s 2012 doctoral dissertation, which first mapped and developed health partnerships between home and school. What began as one researcher’s question — how do families and schools actually work together on a child’s health? — has grown into a longitudinal study spanning three decades of comparison points: 2015, 2023 and 2030.
The first round of quantitative data was collected via questionnaires from parents and teachers in 51 Finnish comprehensive schools in 2015, and the same schools were surveyed again in 2023. In 2024, the study adds a qualitative layer: interviews with parents and teachers, carried out together with the project’s partner, the Finnish Parents’ League and its school-collaboration networks. Now we are looking forward to data collection in 2030. Several research articles have already been published.
The research project originated from Marjorita Sormunen’s 2012 published dissertation, which examined and developed health partnerships between home and school.
Quantitative data was collected from 51 Finnish comprehensive schools (questionnaires parents and teachers).
Quantitative data collected again.
Qualitative data was collected interviewing parents and teachers through the project’s partner, the Finnish Parents’ League networks and school collaboration.
Interviews exploring parents’ perspectives are currently underway.
Quantitative and qualitative data will be collected again
What have we found?
Shared responsibility is growing
Parents increasingly see health learning as a shared job between home and school — especially around emotions, body awareness, sleep, physical activity, and bullying, where shared responsibility grew between 2015 and 2023. Read more.
Some topics remain home's job
Sleep, hygiene and dental care remained mostly home’s task, and no topic was ever seen as the school’s alone. Read more.
Mothers and fathers saw it differently
In 2015, mothers leaned toward “home responsibility” more than fathers did. Read more.
Our partners
