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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. v/r - TP 15:06, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

School hygiene

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School hygiene (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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This article appears to be either WP:original research or WP:synthesis, since it has only 1 source/citation throughout its entire body (on the first sentence) and the external links touch the actual subject of "hygiene" at a school only tangentially. The one source that it lists as a reference, a book written in Serbian, could not be identified using the ISBN number (through WorldCat and Amazon) nor through the title (at WorldCat) and there is essentially no way to verify the information cited without being able to identify text, nor was any original text/translation provided. The article seems to mix aspects of Public health with School health education and Hygiene. The external links, upon which the article appears to rely as sources, discuss "hygiene" in the context of a larger issue of public health, including other separate items such as water and sanitation (for example, the article linked to: "Water, sanitation and hygiene in schools" here, but this article commits WP:Synthesis by making (for example) "water supply" part of "school hygiene", or by discussing the location of building sites avoiding things like mist and strong winds. I think any verifiable, good content, if any, should be merged with School health education or Public health or Hygiene, and this article should be deleted unless proper sourcing of "School hygiene" as an article subject along with verifiable, notable content is accomplished. Moogwrench (talk) 05:33, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • If you will note, most, if not all of them, were written in the late 1800s and early 1900s. While this of course does not preclude their use or the creation of an article with that title, it does suggest that the concept of "school hygiene" as a discipline (which is what this article asserts), is outdated and archaic. This is why I suggested merging any content into other articles, such as Hygiene, among other articles, perhaps at Hygiene#History_of_hygienic_practices. A merge and a redirect might be appropriate at this point. Moogwrench (talk) 16:36, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, Warden. I looked at the books link, and while the article in it's present state still needs a lot of work, with the number of books available the article can be salvaged. The books, however, show how important hygine in school has over 100 years ago meaning the theme of the article would change to reflect this information. That being said I struck my delete comment and I am going to extend a keep to this article, with the caveat that if significant improvements are not made it should go up for a second nomination. Nice work on starting the process, Aleksa! Ishdarian 20:50, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Not an encyclopedia article. Harry the Dog WOOF 07:50, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep AFD is not cleanup. It is our policy to improve weak starts not to delete them. It is quite easy to find more sources such as the Encyclopedia Britannica: "SCHOOL HYGIENE AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION form very important branches of public hygiene in the United States. ... School hygiene may be divided into four main branches: (1) Sanitation of school-houses and school grounds ..." Warden (talk) 10:00, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and cleanup. The article is based on medical class book Hygiene with Health Education, regardless that the book is written in Serbian, it counts as a reliable source. For example, on this site, see the reference, it is: Nikolić, M., Kocijančić, R., Perezanović, V. (2003) Higijena sa zdravstvenim vaspitanjem. Beograd: Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva, and this site. I have this book, and one medical-related book is very good choice as source (read WP:SOURCES, a professional book about hygiene). Certainly, I will clean up and promote this article. Alex discussion ★ 10:45, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
PS Look at Google Books. Alex discussion ★ 12:07, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let me explain what I am talking about in regards to the source. Above, upon looking at Google Books, I wrote that if anything, "school hygiene" seems to be an archaic term related to Physical education and Health education used about 100 years ago, at least looking at the Google books in English (hence the idea of merging and redirecting). It is possible that term "school hygiene" in Serbian might be a current term to describe a current medical discipline in eastern Europe, but it doesn't seem to mean that same thing in English at the present time. The fact is that sometimes things don't translate literally. Moogwrench (talk) 18:17, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • What about UNICEF? They say: A Manual on School Sanitation and Hygiene (1998). Alex discussion ★ 18:40, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • That was one of my original points, UNICEF has sanitation and hygiene as two separate topics, whereas the article lumps sanitation under hygiene. However, other sources, such as Encyclopedia Britannica may list sanitation under hygiene. It also kind of depends what "sanitation" means, too. Is it disinfection or is it removal and disposal of waste and/or a clean water supply? Moogwrench (talk) 22:58, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Question Maybe, the name could be Hygiene at school...? Alex discussion ★ 18:55, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, my thinking kind of mirrors that of Ishdarian. This article, if improved and kept, should focus on the historical "school hygiene" discipline as it existed, and perhaps trace its development into modern public health/sanitation/health education/physical education. If "school hygiene" still exists as a well-defined discipline in other countries, then it can be discussed in that context as well. it is just that it appears that "schoool hygiene" is no longer a clear medical discipline in the U.S., but has been superseded by the above topics. Moogwrench (talk) 22:58, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 14:51, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 14:51, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The article has its problems, but an editor wishes to improve it. Hygiene is a somewhat old-fashioned term so I would propose changing its title to School health. (You’ll find many 21st century sources for this in books [1] although you could also use the many older sources using the term hygiene, especially when describing its history.) From a 2006 Oxford University Press book – “Schools provide an environment that fosters the transmission of common infections.” [2]. Some communicative disease problems, like polio, are mostly gone but so many others remain, I hardly know where to begin – meningitis, hepatitis, head lice, ringworm, scabies, pinworms, ack. This is an important aspect of Public health, and it’s about time someone made a start on it. I don't see see any other treatment on WP apart from School health services, which is a subset of this topic. Novickas (talk) 00:43, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I keep trying to figure out if there is a way to make this work. I feel that if we look at modern "school hygiene," we are going to get little more than a redundant content fork of either Hygiene or School health education. Let me quote from the UNICEF source mentioned above:

"School hygiene education is a specific form of the wider school health education. It deals only with water and sanitation-related health problems in and around the school. School health education concerns all activities that promote health and reduce health risks of school children. Hygiene education primarily aims at changing behaviour toward good or safe practices in relation to personal, water, food, domestic and public hygiene." (emphasis mine)

-UNICEF article A Manual on School Sanitation and Hygiene, p. 3-4

--So we already know that this article, at least per this source, will talk only about hygiene behavior/practices in schools, not "all activities that promote health and reduce health risks of school children," as the first paragraph of the article seems to suggest, that school hygiene looks at all threats to the "intellectual and physical health of pupils." So if we aren't talking about general student health education, which would be a fork of School health education, then we would just be looking at hygiene practices at schools. I am going to be hard presssed to say how hygiene practices at schools differ from those in general society. Handwashing at a school is the same as handwashing anywhere else, essentially. Clean water is just as important in a home as it is in a school. So then we would have a fork of Hygiene.
--But, if we look at "school hygiene" from the disciplinary perspective, especially the historical route (since all those books are around 100 years ago), I am not too sure how many secondary sources we will be able to find on the development, course, and decline (at least in US) of "school hygiene" as a discipline that you study and get a degree in. I am sure it would make an interesting historical monograph. Point is, absent secondary sources on the topic, some original research and primary sources (which is what those old books, due to time separation, are; read WP:PRIMARY) are going to be needed (which would pretty run afoul of Wikipedia standards). You have to have those secondary sources to help you evaluate what people like Fletcher B Dresslar, professor of school hygiene and architecture at George Peabody School for Teachers in Nashville and author of the 1913 School Hygiene, were saying when they wrote what they wrote.
--I am not trying to be antagonistic towards this article, but these issues go far beyond the extensive copy editing/grammar rewrite that needs to be done (work on which, I see, has stalled). In summary, I think this has the potential to be a notable topic, perhaps not looking at the modern concept of "hygiene" at a school (which, again, I feel would be a redundant fork) but looking at the historical discipline of "school hygiene" as a medical/educational/architectural subject. I have my doubts, however, about the wisdom of using primary sources written by period authors to generate that article. So unless you can find some good secondary sources on which to base such an article, I feel that I must remain delete, even as the general discussion seems to be leaning towards a keep or at least, no consensus. Maybe someone can address the points that I have just brought up. And I apologize in advance for the long post. Moogwrench (talk) 05:13, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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