This study aimed to analyze, from the nurses’ perception, the health education practice on the Family Health Strategy in Montes Claros, MG, Brazil. This is a qualitative, descriptive and dialectical research whose residents were eight nurses in the family health. The data were collected through unstructured interviews, recorded and transcribed for further discourse analysis. The results revealed two dichotomous empirical categories: the hegemonic health education, and the dialogic practice. Contradictory discourses were found, where at the same time the subjects describe a participatory and problem-based education while at the same time they report practices based in the imposition of ideas and forcing conditions to the population. The study showed how reality has plural faces and how it evolves in flows and ebbs.
Health education; Family health; Primary health care; Community health nursing; Qualitative research