Whilst care imperatives have arisen across the breadth of Western societies, within the education sector they appear both prolific and urgent. This paper explores the deployment of care discourses within education generally and draws upon the case of Australian Health and Physical Education (HPE) more specifically, to undertake a Foucauldian…

Why would boys want to dance? Why would anyone want to dance? The argument prosecuted in this paper is that dance educators have tended to see dance as a self-evidently good thing with self-evident benefits for children who learn to dance. In other words, dance educators tend to concern themselves with why students should dance rather than why…

The Beijing olympics prompted educationalists to develop new curriculum resources. These resources focus on the socio-cultural elements of the games, olympism and olympic values, the moral and ethical aspects of sport and select geographical, historical and social dimensions of traditional and contemporary Chinese culture. Typically produced as…

In this paper I argue that the meaning of movement of which embodied knowing, somatic understanding and ecological subjectivity are central tenets, has not received due recognition in the current discourses of physical education. While the interest in the meaning and meaning-making of movement within the physical education discourse has existed…

Contemporary notions of good citizenship and proper living have become intimately related to the pursuit of good health. Consequently, modern states have devised programmes of education and training that endeavour to provide apprentice citizens with the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to enhance their own and others health and wellbeing.…

Current debates about the role of sports in boys' education are part of a larger discussion of men, boys and masculinities. In this paper I reflect on this debate and the research it has led to. I highlight questions of embodiment, of relations between different forms of masculinity, and questions of reproduction and change, in all of which the…

Information from feminist physical educators helps examine relationships between theoretical debates in feminism and feminist practice in secondary schools. The article discusses debates over equality, how theoretical struggles between feminists are handled in sport and physical education, and how calls for equality are understood as calls for…

By wedding itself to the "ideology of sport" and associated notions of "manliness," physical education in Australia has retained little scope to advocate for cultural diversity. By maintaining that sport is universally popular amongst all children, physical education silences other ways in which children might find pleasure…

In this paper, the author contends that curricularists should look in other directions rather than continue to be occupied with increasingly anachronistic reform projects. With this argument in mind, in the first section of this paper the author examines curriculum-reform strategies and theories, drawing specific examples from physical education…

This paper describes several key issues which are shaping the profession of Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE). The issues include tertiary education, teacher education and schooling, and deprofessionalization. Drawing from data at an Australian case site, the paper argues that these key issues shape the profession's knowledge, values,…

Discusses difficulties in "doing" critical pedagogy with postmodern students, considering the advantages of working toward a "modest pedagogy" (modeled after Law's modest sociology), which takes seriously the problematic issue of knowledge and schooling, yet avoids some of the pitfalls of Enlightenment thinking and the neglect…

This paper draws on the findings of a recent study of the Daily Physical Education Program in Queensland, Australia. A number of proposals are made concerning the future of daily physical education in schools. Two points in particular are emphasized. The first is that the quality and appropriateness of the research that has underpinned the…

This paper considers the social space of one physical education (PE) class in the middle years of schooling. I endeavour to tease out the dialectic between the discursive spaces available to the students positioned within this space and the construction and negotiation of student subjectivities. Using the conceptual tools of field, habitus,…

Discusses social construction of the body through schooling, in particular physical education and sports. Suggests examination of the effects of these programs on young people. Argues that common practices often serve to alienate young people from their bodies, rather than educating them. (Contains 23 references.) (NB)

Scientization is a process that refers to the mythologies that are generated around the practices of working scientists. This paper discusses how science works on popular consciousness and how particular occupational groups use science to legitimatize their discipline, specifically in physical education. Two examples are presented to illustrate…