Play, games and sport are a part of the content of physical education (PE), and has been the subject of a longstanding debate among educators internationally and in Scandinavian countries. Play refers to something unstructured and free, while sport is a controlled and managed activity. Drawing on Skovbjerg`s (2021) play theory, this article…

National curricula influence, and are influenced by, political agendas. Understanding political enmeshment (both overt and covert) in curriculum development is therefore vital for ensuring transparency and quality in curricula. This paper analyses how the Australian Curriculum is represented in the federal Education Ministers' media releases.…

Nation-states have concerns about the health and wellbeing of their citizens and these concerns have directly or indirectly influenced educational reform and curriculum development. In 2000, China issued a directive of 'Health First' which applied to all elements of the education system. In its scale and scope, this represented a significant and…

Competency-based education (CBE) has been widely adopted in various educational contexts although research discussing how CBE is implemented in local contexts and how it shifts (or not) teaching practices is limited. This study explores how Vietnamese secondary teachers made sense of general competencies and adapted their teaching towards…

A national system of education in modern nation-states is usually geared towards nation-building and schools play a significant role in grooming children as future citizens. While the dominant and powerful usually emerge as the 'ideal citizen' in the national imagination, the marginalized are constructed as the 'other', vilified, and stigmatised.…