Escuelas hospitalarias en España, Suecia y Argentina evolución y situación contemporánea de las instituciones comprometidas con la educación del niño y adolescente en situación de enfermedad

Resumo

ABSTRACT This research tackles one of the least studied aspects in the evolution of educational systems: Hospital Education. This branch of Education Sciences limited to the specific context of hospitals has traditionally been a little-known field. Two institutions converge on it, school and hospital, which provides analytical richness for scientific study. In this case, the research is dealt from a comparative perspective concerning the selection of institutions in three countries with different levels of socioeconomic and educational development. The decision to appeal to the comparative method is based on the analytical fertility that has, which increases the interpretative capacity. This involves identifying what Hospital Education model developed at the three countries object of study is more relevant to the needs of the society in which it exists. Some differences found at the starting conditions affected the inclusion of changes with respect to a conventional comparative study. Initially, the interest of this study started at the completion of a Practicum for the Master in Quality and Improvement in Education at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) and a Master's Thesis focused on the same field, both during the second semester (February to June) of 2007/08 academic year. Despite the controversies about the meaning of educational quality and independence of the ambiguity of the concept, this research has sought a practical and foresight approach. This would not have been possible without conducting rigorous analysis of related educational policies and practices. The double line of inquiry -theoretical and practical- has enabled contributions to future. The first part of the research is dedicated to the Groundwork, divided into two chapters. The first includes the theoretical framework, analyzing the impact of disease, the definition and characteristics of Hospital Pedagogy, the population in this area, the content of pedagogical projects and teachers¿ coordination. In the second chapter, we discuss the international and national legislative framework concerning the area under consideration and its accomplishments in education, as well as the projects developed so far and political-institutional characteristics of the countries considered in this research. In the second part we describe the methodological approach. It presents the research justification, its design and the formulation of the problem and project¿s objectives. Besides, it describes the selection of comparative study units, the population and sample, the methodological development and characteristics of the comparative method, the dimensions and variables of research, the selection of instruments giving special prominence to the interviews (in three different and national contexts) and qualitative strategies utilized. It also introduces some research conjectures. In the third part, which contains three chapters, we study Hospital Education models of Spain, Sweden and Argentina respectively. From the consideration of educational systems, the Hospital Education study is conducted on each country, according to the origin and historical evolution of the discipline, the organization of the service, teacher training, institutional relations and care for families. Also, each of these chapters includes content analysis of interviews with key informants in Spain, Sweden and Argentina. The fourth part contains two chapters. In the first of them, we carry out a juxtaposition and a international comparison of data following indicators selected for studying Hospital Education models in schools at Madrid, Stockholm and Buenos Aires. In the second chapter the conclusions are presented with regard to the problems and objectives formulated at the beginning of this investigation, subject to the variables analyzed. In turn, we describe the educational implications and limitations of the study, make proposals and leave some possible research guidelines for the future.