Educating adolescent students in health and wellness : a review of policies, systems and approaches in the ministries of education and health in Trinidad and Tobago.

In this thesis I examine policies, systems and approaches in the Ministries of Education
and Health in Trinidad and Tobago, in the eduation of adolescents for health and
wellness. I utilise an interpretive qualitative approach to examine how students age 10 -
15 years are educated on health and wellness in the secondary school system. I begin by
looking at the historical influences on the development of education in post emancipation
and post-colonial Trinidad and Tobago. However, the context of my research is health
and the complex social determinants of health in particular, education and the education
system provided for adolescents.
I analyse data obtained from education and health policies and other documents produced
during the early 1990s to 2000s, and from key informants - educators and health
professionals with responsibility for educating adolescents, as well as reflect on my own
professional experience as a health educator. My framework for analysis focuses on
Foucault's (1969,1972) concept of genealogy and the history of the present; Fairclough's
(1995) Critical Discourse Analysis; and social constructivist theories of knowledge to
explore how dominant discourses become social practice. However, I also engage in an
eclectic approach to explore and explain the complexity of meanings created in relation
to adolescents and their health.
Findings suggest that the dominant discourse of adolescence is that of a period
characterised by deviance and sexual and psychosocial problems. Additionally, that
education and health professionals engage in practice based on their individual life
experiences that reflect the historical development of education in Trinidad and Tobago.
This is demonstrated by their silence on aspects of denominational control over schools
that encourage educational inequality according to social class and also the stratification
of subjects taught in different secondary schools.
My recommendations include a review of past research studies to assist in shaping new
research to look at present practice in both the Ministries of Education and Health in
educating adolescents in health and wellness. I argue that new research is required in
Trinidad and Tobago that begins with the premise that adolescence is a normal stage in
the life cycle. I also recommend new approaches between the Ministries of Education and
Health that ensure structures and systems supported by a legal framework providing an
environment supportive of adolescent health and wellness.