Discussion: The Conference and the Future

Early discussion focused on the nature of health education and whether its interests and those involved in its teaching and learning would be better served by pursuing a more coherent approach. Another view anticipated the threat of isolation of the single discipline in the move towards a unitary subject which, although attractive in its academic respectability and more clearly recognizable by the layman, would lack the richness of a wider perspective. The latter could be met by recognizing the strength of an eclectic approach and drawing freely on many sources of disciplines and methods of study. Furthermore, eclecticism could be pursued in the choice of areas of health and education to be studied and problems or concerns to be tackled. One member suggested that eclecticism in methods might well enliven and improve future conferences. For instance, experiential methods applied at the start of a conference could help people get to know each other earlier. Another expressed the view that at the conference the variety of people, backgrounds and professions had cleared up misunderstandings and caused stereotypes to be revised, c as the different approaches to work had come to be understood and respected as different’.