Engaging with Normativity in Health Education Research: Inspiration from Continental Critical Theory

In this chapter, we discuss some of the ways in which health education research can engage with criticality and normativity by bringing a close reading of selected key concepts by the educational theorist Wolfgang Klafki (1927-2016) into dialogue with the sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas (1929- ). Out point of departure is that there is no definite rational system that determines what good health education is, and which can assist in justifying pedagogical choices and actions. Health education as practice is always normative; it involves value-based, ethical and moral deliberations, even if these are always in motion, (re)negotiated, configured and enacted on the trajectories between global, national and local actors. Consequently, research in health education needs to engage with normativity, that is, to consider the dynamic links between normative and other (e.g. theory, policy and practice related) educational questions.