Health education curricula in Canada: an overview and analysis

ABSTRACT

Health education (HE) curricula across Canada are developed by individual provinces/territories, enabling curriculum documents to be responsive to regional needs. However, this autonomy prevents Canadian teachers (and students) from having access to a consistent collection of curriculum competencies/outcomes. Without national HE curriculum competencies/outcomes, it is nearly impossible to design curricula that adhere to any shared ‘global’ curriculum agendas. Given this, Physical and Health Education Canada (PHE Canada) recently developed and released the Canadian Competencies for Physical and Health Education (CPHE Competencies). Within the CPHE Competencies are core HE competencies/outcome themes that are meant to be exemplars for education systems (K–12) across the nation. In this milieu, we have recognised a need to provide an overview and analysis of HE curricula across Canada. Our overview and analysis consider the following: allocated time for teaching and learning HE; age/contemporary relevance of HE curricula; and alignment with the CPHE Competencies.

KEYWORDS:

• Health education
• curriculum
• competencies
• outcomes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Our health education curriculum overview and analysis only focuses upon grades 1–12 (and excludes kindergarten), largely due to the observation that there is simply too much inconsistency amongst the structures and guidelines included within provinces’/territories’ curricula and curricular guidelines for the kindergarten year. Our health education curriculum overview and analysis also only focuses upon the Anglophone school systems in Québec and New Brunswick (which both also have an accompanying Francophone system).

2 The CPHE Competencies include four broad ‘Big Ideas’ with 19 accompanying outcome themes (i.e. each competency has four, five, or six outcome themes). Though each outcome theme includes a small number of example outcomes (i.e. 2–8), all grades do not necessarily include example outcomes that fall under each of the 19 outcome themes. Also, some of these example outcomes are not necessarily best placed among the 19 outcome themes. For example, grade 8’s ‘propose ways to recognize persistent negative feelings or mental well-being struggles and ways to reach out for help for self and others (e.g. depression, anxiety, eating disorders, suicidal ideation)’ (Davis et al., 2023, p. 47) might be better placed under ‘Emotional Attunement’ within ‘Identity and Relationships’ – yet it falls under ‘Living Well’. Similarly, grade 9’s ‘scrutinize advertising to discover bias and messages that affect decisions’ (Davis et al., 2023, p. 49) might be better placed under ‘Social Influences’ within ‘Identity and Relationships’ – yet it falls under ‘Living Well’. Such ‘misalignment’ may also highlight the reality that the CPHE Competencies offer overlapping outcome themes, rather than discrete ones. Notwithstanding this, the CPHE Competencies’ health and wellness education ‘Big Ideas’, outcome themes, and example outcomes provide a suitable exemplar for health education across the nation.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number #890-2021-0036].

Notes on contributors

Daniel B. Robinson

Daniel B. Robinson is Coordinator of the PhD in Educational Studies and Professor in the Faculty of Education at St. Francis Xavier University.

Lauren Sulz

Lauren Sulz is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta.

Hayley Morrison

Hayley Morrison is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta.

Lindsey Wilson

Lindsey Wilson is Research Assistant in the Faculty of Education at St. Francis Xavier University.

Jodi Harding-Kuriger

Jodi Harding-Kuriger is Assistant Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta.