IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i14p7517-d594561.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are Perceptions of Health Dependant on Social Class? Studying Soft Power and Symbolic Violence in a Health Promotion Program among Young Men at Vocational Schools

Author

Listed:
  • Bent Egberg Mikkelsen

    (Department of Geoscience & Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, 1958 Frederiksberg, Denmark)

  • Frantisek Sudzina

    (Department of Systems Analysis, University of Economics, 130 67 Prague, Czech Republic
    Department of Materials and Production, Aalborg University, 2450 Copenhagen, Denmark)

  • Marek Botek

    (Department of Economics and Management, University of Chemistry and Technology, 166 28 Prague, Czech Republic)

  • Annette Quinto Romani

    (Department of Sociology and Social Work, Aalborg University, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark)

  • Kristian Larsen

    (Copenhagen University Hospitals Centre for Health Research, 2200 Copenhagen, Denmark
    Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, 1123 Copenhagen, Denmark)

Abstract

Health behaviour among young people has a social gradient, and tends to be skewed in terms of gender as well. Young men in vocational educational settings are an example where the inequality in health is apparent. Addressing this problem requires an understanding of health behaviour and its determinants in the target group in order to be able to develop interventions that can address the problem. The aim of the paper is to investigate to what extent a multicomponent intervention based on the Whole School Approach, targeting the risk behaviours, smoking, eating and physical activity that have an impact on health behaviour among male students in a disadvantaged educational setting. The paper uses self-reported longitudinal data on risk behaviours from the “Gearing up the Body” 1-year intervention program that was implemented among students at a Danish vocational school. For the analysis, we created a score model to categorise students and behaviour. Analyses suggest that interventions had only a modest impact and what evidence there is shows that the interventions reduced the health behaviour scores by 0.03 points. More specifically, we find that symbolic violence reduces the health behaviour score of the healthy types by 0.20 points, whereas soft power increases the health behaviour of the unhealthy type by 0.05 points. An explanation for the disappointing results of the “Gearing up the Body” program is tension between different understanding of what is “right” and “wrong” health behaviour. We find that the ideas of soft power and symbolic violence can contribute to a better understanding of why health and health behaviour is understood differently among vocational students. Thus, the finding demonstrates that one needs to apply a participatory approach rather than a normative approach addressing the health behaviour of disadvantaged individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Bent Egberg Mikkelsen & Frantisek Sudzina & Marek Botek & Annette Quinto Romani & Kristian Larsen, 2021. "Are Perceptions of Health Dependant on Social Class? Studying Soft Power and Symbolic Violence in a Health Promotion Program among Young Men at Vocational Schools," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-16, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:14:p:7517-:d:594561
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/14/7517/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/14/7517/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diogo Gonçalves & Pedro Coelho & Luis F. Martinez & Paulo Monteiro, 2021. "Nudging Consumers toward Healthier Food Choices: A Field Study on the Effect of Social Norms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-14, February.
    2. Eide, Eric R. & Showalter, Mark H., 2011. "Estimating the relation between health and education: What do we know and what do we need to know?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 778-791, October.
    3. Kelder, S.H. & Perry, C.L. & Klepp, K.-I. & Lytle, L.L., 1994. "Longitudinal tracking of adolescent smoking, physical activity, and food choice behaviors," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 84(7), pages 1121-1126.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bent E. Mikkelsen & Annette Q. Romani & Maria P. Brandão, 2021. "Do Crowding-Out Effects Explain the Low Effect of a Health Promotion Intervention among Young People at a Vocational School?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-18, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Albarrán, Pedro & Hidalgo-Hidalgo, Marisa & Iturbe-Ormaetxe, Iñigo, 2020. "Education and adult health: Is there a causal effect?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 249(C).
    2. Pedro Albarran Pérez & Marisa Hidalgo Hidalgo & Iñigo Iturbe-Ormaetxe Kortajarene, 2017. "Schooling and adult health: Can education overcome bad early-life conditions?," Working Papers. Serie AD 2017-09, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    3. Tansel, Aysit & Karao?lan, Deniz, 2016. "The Causal Effect of Education on Health Behaviors: Evidence from Turkey," IZA Discussion Papers 10020, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Chen, Yuanyuan & Wang, Haining & Cheng, Zhiming & Smyth, Russell, 2023. "Education and Migrant Health in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    5. Raquel Fonseca Benito & Yuhui Zheng, 2011. "The Effect of Education on Health Cross-Country Evidence," Working Papers WR-864, RAND Corporation.
    6. Böckerman, Petri & Maczulskij, Terhi, 2016. "The Education-health Nexus: Fact and fiction," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 112-116.
    7. Pokhilenko, I. & Kast, T. & Janssen, L. M.M. & Evers, S. M.A.A. & Paulus, A. T.G. & Simon, J. & Mayer, S. & Berger, M. & Konnopka, A. & Muntendorf, L. & Brodszky, V. & García-Pérez, L. & Park, A-La & , 2023. "International comparability of reference unit costs of education services: when harmonizing methodology is not enough (PECUNIA project)," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117769, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Pinna Pintor, Matteo & Fumagalli, Elena & Suhrcke, Marc, 2024. "The impact of health on labour market outcomes: A rapid systematic review," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    9. Shazia Kousar & Farhan Ahmed & Muhammad Afzal & Juan E. Trinidad Segovia, 2023. "Is government spending in the education and health sector necessary for human capital development?," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    10. Debra A. Hoffmann & Jenna M. Marx & Jacob M. Burmeister & Dara R. Musher-Eizenman, 2018. "Friday Night Is Pizza Night: A Comparison of Children’s Dietary Intake and Maternal Perceptions and Feeding Goals on Weekdays and Weekends," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-12, April.
    11. Belot, Michèle & James, Jonathan & Nolen, Patrick, 2016. "Incentives and children's dietary choices: A field experiment in primary schools," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 213-229.
    12. Thang Dang, 2018. "Do the more educated utilize more health care services? Evidence from Vietnam using a regression discontinuity design," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 277-299, September.
    13. Sylvia, Sean & Luo, Renfu & Zhang, Linxiu & Shi, Yaojiang & Medina, Alexis & Rozelle, Scott, 2013. "Do you get what you pay for with school-based health programs? Evidence from a child nutrition experiment in rural China," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 1-12.
    14. Kamhöfer, Daniel A. & Cattan, Sarah & Karlsson, Martin & Nilsson, Therese, 2015. "The Effects of Sickness Absence in School on Educational Achievements, Mortality and Income," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113180, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Barone, Adriana & Nese, Annamaria, 2015. "Body Weight and Gender: Academic Choice and Performance," MPRA Paper 68450, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Rasyad A. Parinduri, 2017. "Does Education Improve Health? Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(9), pages 1358-1375, September.
    17. Jenny Torssander, 2013. "From Child to Parent? The Significance of Children’s Education for Their Parents’ Longevity," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(2), pages 637-659, April.
    18. Sarah R. Cohodes & Daniel S. Grossman & Samuel A. Kleiner & Michael F. Lovenheim, 2016. "The Effect of Child Health Insurance Access on Schooling: Evidence from Public Insurance Expansions," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(3), pages 727-759.
    19. Mancino, Lisa & Todd, Jessica E. & Guthrie, Joanne F. & Lin, Biing-Hwan, 2010. "How Food Away From Home Affects Children's Diet Quality," Economic Research Report 134700, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    20. Baltagi, Badi H. & Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso & Karatas, Haci M., 2019. "The effect of education on health: Evidence from the 1997 compulsory schooling reform in Turkey," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 205-221.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:14:p:7517-:d:594561. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.