Mental health and education in the contemporary context:

reflections on the promotion of mental health at university

Abstract

This article analyzes the representations of the concepts of health and mental health, with the aim of investigating the convergences between the fields, and identifying how mental health promotion occurs in universities, highlighting meanings and practices that permeate the debate. It is understood that the educational process in the contemporary context is marked by public policies that are implemented as an obligation of the State and that do not contemplate the diversity and social inequalities historically constituted in Brazil. In the vast majority of cases, educational systems are subject to a set of tensions and challenges that create dichotomies and knowledge based on disciplinarity, imposing ways of teaching and disseminating knowledge. This is an interdisciplinary reading that articulates concepts and epistemological perspectives, based on the thoughts of Michel Foucault, Edgar Morin and other authors investigated throughout the ongoing doctoral research.