Barriers to the implementation of primary prevention of risky behaviour in school in the context of teacher/ school prevention methodologist activities

Abstract

This research article is related to the issue of risky behaviour of elementary and high school pupils from the point of view of teachers responsible for implementing school-based primary prevention programs. The author aims at the perspective of teachers who serve as school prevention methodologists and who organize, realize, and assess school prevention programs. The text describes discursive questions related to prevention and the potential of the teachers leading to the effective implementation of school-based prevention programs. The presented research outcomes show the teachers’ evaluation of conditions provided for the realization of prevention programs in schools; it then analyses interviews with the teachers about behaviour issues they encounter in their students. Risky behaviour prevention is an obligatory component of education in the Czech Republic. Schools create prevention strategies and programs as part of the school curriculum. The key questions related to creating these documents include clarifying the general topics that the school should address within the theoretical bases, defining the key priorities and specifying the main topics in the prevention program. School prevention methodologists have a lack of confidence, which prevents them from preparing and evaluating the programs properly. Teachers must contend with a number of issues, yet they are not certain enough about the effective conditions and processes needed for the successful realization of prevention programs. The first part of the research design is based on data obtained from the mind maps analysis. These mind maps are the outcome of the school prevention methodologists’ participation in focus groups (n=28). Within these groups, participants captured the issues and conditions related to their personal view of the realization of prevention programs in their schools. The subsequent content analysis of the text, according to Klapko (2013), provides an interesting use of the connection between the primary mass mapping of the issue of the distribution of variables due to the categorical key and the in-depth data analysis within the context of the qualitative research study. The analysis of mind maps was realized in accordance with the research method described by Gavora (2010): the basic set of texts was determined (in this particular case, the mind maps), then the semantic units were classified into several analytic categories, and these units were finally quantified and described. The interpretation of the results (by the technique of “laying cards on the table”) is based on the research data obtained during the second phase of the research. This part concerns the interviews with teachers about their mind maps. The participants were asked to explain their personal attitude reflected in the selection of given categories and in the formulation of the logic chains. Research outcomes show important knowledge related to the realization of prevention programs in 28 schools in the South Bohemia region, all of which require support in this respect.

Keywords

• primární prevence
• rizikové chování
• základní škola
• metodik školní prevence