Why do we need social theory in health education

In her book Cruel Optimism, Lauren Berlant (2011) states that “long term problems of embodiment within capitalism, in the zoning of the everyday, the work of getting through it, and the obstacles to mental and physical flourishing are less successfully addressed in the temporalities of crisis and require other frames for elaborating context of doing, being and thriving” (p. 105). Berlant’s quote, and indeed her whole book, has much to offer those of us who are interested in trying to make sense of health education and its various ambitions and tactics. For the purposes of our present discussion though, her point about the necessity for other frames for elaborating is significant. Whilst theory has been a mainstay of health education over time, following Berlant, we want to suggest that there is a pressing need to turn to other frames to help us think differently about the project of health education and ask new questions about how it is imagined, assembled and enacted in the everyday.