Health promotion at school: the debate on "cognitive and non-cognitive" skills and the tasks of health psychology

Journal title PSICOLOGIA DELLA SALUTE
Author/s Paride Braibanti, Maria Pia Gagliardi, Michela Di Trani, Mario Bertini
Publishing Year 2022 Issue 2022/2
Language Italian Pages 18 P. 13-30 File size 258 KB
DOI 10.3280/PDS2022-002003
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For some time in the Italian school there has been a need to expand the educational offer, beyond the traditional school subjects, to topics and skills for health and personal and social development. The introduction of health education also in the Italian school in the 1990s moves in this direction, activated in parallel with the recommendations of the WHO contained in the international frameworks of Life Skills and Health Promoting Schools. However, this effort has not always been marked by clarity, coherence and systematicity capable of translating into effective and rooted innovations in school and educational practices, especially when the "projects" are presented as "additional" and "top-down", not integrated with the variety of cultures and resources of schools, territories, and communities. A recent law proposal that intends to introduce so-called non-cognitive skills in school does not seem to be an exception. It does not seem able to sustain the effort to integrate school learning competences with those "key and citizenship competences" in which the same "non-cognitive skills" are inseparably inscribed. Instead, it seems necessary to finally pay attention to the need to build a consultancy network for the school and its agents of change (pupils, teachers, school organization, families, communities, and the territory) that supports and nurtures school autonomy and helps them to intercept needs, resources, and subjectivity present in the community and in the territory.

Keywords: Life Skills, non cognitive skills, health promotion.

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Paride Braibanti, Maria Pia Gagliardi, Michela Di Trani, Mario Bertini, Promozione della salute a scuola: il dibattito sulle competenze "cognitive e non cognitive" e i compiti della psicologia della salute in "PSICOLOGIA DELLA SALUTE" 2/2022, pp 13-30, DOI: 10.3280/PDS2022-002003