Whom and from what paradigm should health promotion serve?

Abstract

Social life is constructed and contextualized; it is to be discovered through the eyes of the participants. If social life is constructed, then both the researcher and the practitioner in health promotion are obliged to understand this constructed reality. Such a frame is more than knowing &dquo;qualitative&dquo; data. Rather, it is a frame that demands a new epistemology. This new frame is known as the constructivist paradigm. When we apply the constructivist paradigm to health promotion, we are climbing uphill against the gradient of a major research paradigm that has dominated health education and health promotion: the realist or empiricist tradition. The realist perspective decontextualizes what is to be known, emphasizes detached objectivity in both the scientist and methods of data generation, assumes that a priori concepts must be applied