CONCEPTIONS OF EDUCATION FOR THE HEALTH OF SCIENCE TEACHERS IN SOUTHERN COLOMBIA

Abstract

Health is a social phenomenon conceived from a biological point of view. However, recent studies have allowed us to recognize that health is culturally constructed and education participates in this process. This project is a pioneer in the southern region of Colombia, characterizing the conceptions and attitudes of science teachers in initial higher education training and their link with the Natural Science classroom. The research is of a mixed nature, with a non-experimental design and a descriptive and interpretive scope. For this, a questionnaire with open questions and a Likert scale was created, which was applied to 44 teachers in training at the Universidade Surcolombiana. Systematization is performed using the content analysis technique and with the support of the Atlas ti 7.0 software. For future teachers, health is a cross-cutting concept in education, which can be objectively taught in the natural science curriculum. This analysis is carried out by reviewing that pedagogical guidelines in Colombia for science teaching establish different purposes and competences in this field of knowledge, where aspects such as personal and collective care, hygiene, sexual health and affective health, environmental, substance use psychoactive, and other areas of higher education. Likewise, future teachers consider that the affective dimension (affects, emotions and feelings) has been little explored in this field of study, despite emotions being directly related to human health. Therefore, the conceptions of future science teachers go beyond traditionalist notions of health, approaching a biopsychosocial perspective.