We start our research at the macro level by analyzing policies on health education. Then we will focus on primary school pupils. On the level of social actors, we will measure students’ level of HL and CT about health and health choices (on a nation-wide representative sample). It shall enable us to explore the outcomes of the policy. To understand the mechanisms determining pupils' health literacy and critical thinking skills, at the last stage we will conduct case studies in selected schools. Researching school systems, we will focus on analyzing teachers, counsellors, school nurses/hygienists and school prevention and educational programs (Szkolny Program Profilakt-Wychow.), which all schools in Poland are obliged to develop annually and have accepted by teachers and parents’ councils, as well as other activities organized by schools to promote physical and mental health, and school canteens menus. The project comprises 7 work packages (WP) including one devoted to management and dissemination. The first phase (WP1) of the process will include a thorough background literature review to prepare for further research work. It will be devoted to the conceptualization and operationalization of the concepts and methods used further. The second phase (WP2) will be devoted to policy analysis, aimed at identifying potential policy options addressing HL and CT about health. Working with situational analysis methodology (Clarke 2003) we will investigate the core school curriculums, school textbooks, and other documents identifying main actors, values, and goals. The policy analysis will be followed by quantitative measurement of individual competences of pupils to verify to what extent the policies and schools’ efforts really work in regard to building HL and CT skills. We aim here to assess the level of HL and CT among pupils in a national survey (WP4). To diagnose pupils’ skills with high-quality tools, in WP3 we will adapt and validate a renowned international instrument measuring CT about health choices. In the fifth research stage (WP5) we will refer to schools conceptualized as microstructures. We will conduct 14 case studies across 7 regions (macro-regions NUTS) and we will focus on collecting teachers’, school counsellors’ and school nurses'/hygienists’ experiences with developing HL and CT about health in selected schools as well as pupils’ perspective on learning about health issues. This material will be enriched with a participatory observation devoted to learning about pupils’ health behaviors', i.e. their practices during breaks, hygienic habits, and the school’s environment, i.e. school menu, assortment in school shops and vending machines. The last step (WP6) helps us to consolidate the research result from three parts. Our ambition is to develop the theoretical concept of health capital which includes HL, CT, communication skills and SES.