From Complex Interventions to Complex Systems: Using Social Network Analysis to Understand School Engagement with Health and Wellbeing

Hannah J. Littlecott, Graham F. Moore, Hugh Colin Gallagher and Simon Murphy
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Hannah J. Littlecott: DECIPHer, UKCRC Centre of Excellence, Cardiff University, 1-3 Museum Place, Cardiff CF10 3BD, UK
Graham F. Moore: DECIPHer, UKCRC Centre of Excellence, Cardiff University, 1-3 Museum Place, Cardiff CF10 3BD, UK
Hugh Colin Gallagher: Centre for Transformative Innovation, Faculty of Business and Law, Swinburne University of Technology, AGSE121 Hawthorne Campus, Melbourne, PO Box 218, Australia
Simon Murphy: DECIPHer, UKCRC Centre of Excellence, Cardiff University, 1-3 Museum Place, Cardiff CF10 3BD, UK

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 10, 1-18

Abstract: Challenges in changing school system functioning to orient them towards health are commonly underestimated. Understanding the social interactions of school staff from a complex systems perspective may provide valuable insight into how system dynamics may impede or facilitate the promotion of health and wellbeing. Ego social network analysis was employed with wellbeing leads within four diverse case study schools to identify variability in embeddedness of health and wellbeing roles. This variation, as well as the broader context, was then explored through semi-structured qualitative interviews with school staff and a Healthy Schools Coordinator, sampled from the wellbeing leads’ ego-networks. Networks varied in terms of perceived importance and frequency of interactions, centrality, brokerage and cliques. Case study schools that showed higher engagement with health and wellbeing had highly organised, distributed leadership structures, dedicated wellbeing roles, senior leadership support and outside agencies embedded within school systems. Allocation of responsibility for wellbeing to a member of the senior leadership team alongside a distributed leadership approach may facilitate the reorientation of school systems towards health and wellbeing. Ego-network analysis to understand variance in complex school system starting points could be replicated on a larger scale and utilised to design complex interventions.

Keywords: school health; complexity; complex systems; network; ego network analysis; social network analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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