ERIC Number: EJ1476047
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1740-4622
EISSN: EISSN-1740-4630
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Contours and Canyons of Health: Learning Health Equity through Body Mapping
Yukari Seko1; Iva Pivalica2
Communication Teacher, v39 n3 p237-247 2025
Critical health communication (CHC) explores how meanings and enactments of health are linked to power dynamics and systemic inequalities by centering the body in research and practice. When teaching CHC in a postsecondary classroom, it is imperative to provide students with an opportunity to engage in embodied learning to think critically about the taken-for-granted assumptions about health, illness, and disabilities. This semester-long assignment employs body mapping, an arts-informed method of embodied storytelling to help students engage in intimate and affective learning of a health condition of their choice. Students conduct in-depth research about the condition, create a fictional character who lives with the condition, and produce life-size maps of the character using their own body contours. Critical health communication (CHC) explores how meanings and enactments of health are linked to power dynamics and systemic inequalities by centering the body in research and practice. When teaching CHC in a postsecondary classroom, it is imperative to provide students with an opportunity to engage in embodied learning to think critically about the taken-for-granted assumptions about health, illness, and disabilities. This semester-long assignment employs body mapping, an arts-informed method of embodied storytelling to help students engage in intimate and affective learning of a health condition of their choice. Students conduct in-depth research about the condition, create a fictional character who lives with the condition, and produce life-size maps of the character using their own body contours. Courses: This assignment is suitable for upper undergraduate or master's level communication studies courses featuring CHC, health humanities, social determinants of health, and social justice. This assignment is suitable for upper undergraduate or master's level communication studies courses featuring CHC, health humanities, social determinants of health, and social justice. Objectives: Upon successful completion of this semester-long project, students will be able to: demonstrate a clear understanding of how a health condition of their interest is represented, marketed, and promoted through the media; describe sociocultural, ideological, and structural forces that shape media representations of the health condition; ethically and compassionately represent the health condition as a holistic experience through a fictional character they develop; create a life-size body map of the fictional character that embodies the health condition; and critically reflect on their semester-long learning and articulate strategies for improvement. Upon successful completion of this semester-long project, students will be able to: demonstrate a clear understanding of how a health condition of their interest is represented, marketed, and promoted through the media; describe sociocultural, ideological, and structural forces that shape media representations of the health condition; ethically and compassionately represent the health condition as a holistic experience through a fictional character they develop; create a life-size body map of the fictional character that embodies the health condition; and critically reflect on their semester-long learning and articulate strategies for improvement.
Descriptors: Health, Communication Skills, Human Body, Critical Thinking, Story Telling, Health Conditions, Power Structure, Undergraduate Students, Graduate Students, Student Projects, Mass Media, Ideology
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1School of Professional Communication, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Canada; 2Teaching Excellence, Innovative Learning, Humber College Institute of Technology and Learning, Toronto, Canada