Parkour as Health Promotion in Schools: A Qualitative Study Focusing on Aspects of Participation

Abstract

In this paper we highlight the potential role of parkour in school-based health promotion for children and adolescents. The popularity of parkour has increased significantly in recent years and has attracted a lot of new participants. Health promotion initiatives in schools face challenges, when it comes to generating a high level of participation among children and adolescents. Parkour has only sporadically been introduced to the school setting, and it is therefore relevant to study whether parkour contains the elements that can generate a high level of participation within health promotion activities in school. The paper reports on an empirical study of how parkour generates different kinds of participation. The paper provides health practitioners with important knowledge about why and how it is important to use parkour in school health promotion in order to provide participatory conditions that create a significant health promoting effect for all adolescents – not just for those who are already healthy.