Health and learning are intrinsically linked and have a reciprocal relationship. Healthy students generate better learning outcomes and good learning outcomes in turn generate healthy students. The health of students is traditionally viewed as the concern of the student health staff and not as a central part of the teacher profession.  It is however stipulated by the Swedish National Agency for Education and The Agency of Health and Welfare that the teaching profession also entails health promotion. 

The teacher and the relationship between the teacher and the student have proven crucial to student mental health. This is also noted by The Swedish Education Agency and The Agency of Health and Welfare which state that “student health work is conducted in all school environments especially the classroom where the teacher plays a key part”. In spite of the fundamental role the teacher plays regarding student health, there are no clear guidelines on a state level regarding teachers’ work with student health and it is a responsibility not traditionally associated with teaching. 

In Sweden, school health work is regulated by the Education Act, which states that the work should focus on health promotion and risk prevention. On a municipal and school level there are Student Health Plans which are local documents that interpret national directives and thus guide the school’s work with student health. This study aims to examine how the role of the teacher is presented in such Student Health Plans.

Thirty-seven student health plans ranging from four to 32 pages were collected from municipalities and high school across Sweden. These texts are analyzed using discourse analysis. Dominant and less dominant ways to depict health promotion and the teacher's role in the work were detected. The initial analysis shows that the role of the teacher is mentioned in different ways; that is, the interpretation and specification of what the health promoting work should imply for the teacher vary depending on the municipality and school. The teacher is rarely mentioned in connection to health promoting work but often in relation to remediating or rectifying actions. When the teacher is mentioned in terms of health promotion it is in general and imprecise terms. Moreover, the role of the teacher is recurrently defined in relation to other, quite new professions in school with indeterminate functions, such as ‘student consultant’ and ‘student assistant’. 

Mental health issues among children and youth have increased the past decades in many Nordic and European countries. The part of the school in the work to promote health and prevent risks has been stressed by international and national organizations, but little is known of how it is interpreted and operationalized in relation to the teachers. This study contributes to widen our understanding of how the global and national discourse comes into play, that is, how it is (re)constructed and negotiated, in local School Health Plans.