Physical education can be a subject that students find challenging when they are given little autonomy. This article explores two high school case studies, in the UK and Australia respectively, where students were given a great deal of choice over their learning and assessment journeys. In the UK case study, a Sport England survey was used with…

The developmental shifts encountered by boys during adolescence can have long-term implications for mental health. This paper describes a holistic approach to wellbeing and development (the On Queenslea Drive, or OQD, program), which draws upon a traditional Rites of Passage framework to support the development of boys during this period. This…

Young people tend to have low levels of sexual health literacy. The aims of this work were to explore health professionals' perspectives of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education in Australia and what they considered should be the core components of SRH curriculum, particularly for Year 11 and 12 students. In September and October, 2021,…

Widespread global interest and adoption of deliberative democracy approaches to reinvigorate citizenship and policymaking in an era of democratic crisis/decline has been mirrored by increasing interest in deliberation in schools, both as an approach to pedagogy and student empowerment and as a training ground for deliberative citizenship. In…

IGNITE, a high school-based programme, was developed for high ability underachievers using the Achievement Orientation Model (AOM), Maker Model, and Bibliotherapy in a mainstream setting. This paper reports on the effects discovered while implementing the programme over the course of 2 years. Year 7 (13 year olds) and Year 9 (15 year olds)…

The purpose of this review is to expand understanding of the ways culturally, ethnically, and racially diverse youth have begun to reimagine urban and rural spaces using digital storytelling and photovoice, two methods that often fall under the broad field of youth participatory action research. To explain the conditions under which these methods…

The barriers to school attendance that affect young Aboriginal people in Australia are diverse, immense and well documented; however, except for a handful of studies, Aboriginal students' voices receive no platform for policy makers to hear them. In this paper, we present results from yarning circles about barriers to school attendance conducted…

Participation in sport during high school has been linked with a range of educational and developmental benefits. However, there is limited research investigating the benefits of participation in sport from the perspective of Aboriginal former youth sports participants. The purpose of the current research was to investigate how participation in…

In addressing literacy in high school education, it is important to foreground the particular issues faced by growing numbers of English Language Learners (ELLs). In our increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms, this is a matter for all literacy teachers, as well as ELL specialists. In Australia, teachers of ELLs are…

Personalized learning spaces are emerging in schools as a critical reaction to "industrial-era" school models. As the form and function of schools and pedagogy change, this places pressure on teachers to adapt their conventional practice. This paper addresses the question of how teachers can adapt their classroom practice to create…

The Australian school context has been something of a failed test case of trying to organise schooling around the tenets of the market as a regulating mechanism. The result has been an intensification of social stratification as the already "disadvantaged" miss out yet again in education. This short paper argues that what is needed to…

Popular physical culture serves as a site, subject and medium for young people's learning (Sandford & Rich, 2006) and impacts their relationship with physical education, physical activity and the construction of their embodied identities. This paper addresses the potential of scrapbooking as a pedagogical and methodological tool to facilitate…

The draft Australian Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2012c) takes a strengths-based approach that emphasizes questions such as "What keeps me healthy and active?" rather than "What risks, diseases and behaviours should I learn to avoid?". This…

We describe two interventions designed to encourage community action with youth in a school and a community service setting. The school intervention took place with a Year 10 class, while the community-based intervention took place with a group of same-sex attracted youth. Using a participatory action research framework, youth in both settings…

This paper reports on processes employed at a secondary state high school in Australia, where students directed inclusive school development. The procedures used in the study were developed from the Index for Inclusion and included a student forum; a student presentation to parents, principal and teachers and a focus group interview with members…