Critical health education as a tool for the empowerment of school adolescents in the face of their health vulnerabilities

Abstract

Objective: to analyze how health education work can contribute to the empowerment of school adolescents to reduce their vulnerabilities. Method: this is a descriptive, exploratory study, with a qualitative approach, carried out with 12 adolescents, of both sexes, aged between 15 and 17 years old, high school students from a public school in the interior of São Paulo. As an inclusion criterion, we chose to interview students who had already participated in health education activities developed at school in the year prior to data collection and who were still participating in the activities at the time of the interview. Data were collected through a script of semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The group of subjects was defined based on data saturation, homogeneities and internal differences of the researched group. For the analysis we used the method of content analysis, thematic modality. Results: the analyticalinterpretative trajectory of the data revealed two thematic cores: "the activities of health promotion, the instruments and strategies used" and "the empowerment", allowing to show that the adolescents who participated in the health education activities at school became become more empowered to think about their own lives and make more conscious decisions that affect themselves and society. Conclusion: health education activities when carried out under the critical conception of liberating education, which promote the formation of reflective subjects, contribute to the development of autonomy and empowerment, factors that drive assertive choices for a better quality of life.