In Australian culture, males dominate sports such as football, cricket and Australian Rules Football. Girls and women in such sports are frequently required to negotiate persistent gender constructs and stereotypes. Despite this, in recent years there has been an increase in girls' participation in sports that are constructed as masculine. The…

Participation in physical activity (PA) tends to decline between childhood and adolescence, and in Australia the bulk of this decline has been shown to occur in the domain of non-organised PA (e.g. active play, informal sports). A better understanding of the reasons for the decline in non-organised PA may support strategies to counter barriers and…

Tertiary programmes responsible for preparing people for careers in Health, Exercise, Sport and Physical Education (HESPE) professions have a long association with educating for health in and through the physical body. However, in recent years, led predominantly by the World Health Organisation, there has been a shift from individualistic and…

This article reports on a study that inquired into the journeys of sixteen Indigenous Australian athletes from their first touch of the footy to the Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL) that identified two distinct stages of their journeys. These were: (1) the development of expertize and of a distinctly Aboriginal…

At an embodied and personal level this paper plays with what Evans, J., & Davies, B. (2011. New directions, new questions? Social theory, education and embodiment. "Sport, Education & Society," 16(3), 263-278) suggests are 'the complexity and nuances of biology in culture and the influence of body pedagogies in the production of…

This paper aims to explore young Chinese girls' aspirations and ideal environments for engagement in Health and Physical Education (HPE) and physical activity (PA) in Greater Western Sydney. Interviews are used to elicit these girls' perceptions of their future and ideal environments in relation to HPEPA. Their data offer insights into key…

This article is about how Indigenous students from Year 7 to 10 at three government schools in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) experience PE. The research question being, how do Indigenous students experience PE at the schools selected for the research? A process oriented approach was used to answer this question. In particular,…

This paper uses transnational postcolonial feminist participatory action research (TPFPAR) to examine two sport for development and peace (SDP) initiatives that focus on Indigenous young women residing in urban areas, one in Vancouver, Canada, and one in Perth, Australia. We examine how SDP programs that target urban Indigenous young women and…

This paper considers the pedagogical properties and subsequent impact of sport-for-development programs across a variety of sites in Australia. Moreover, this research adopts a socio-personal account of learning in an attempt to examine the contributions of the social and physical worlds related to surfing programs as well as the individuals' role…

Research analysing the operation of power within sport and physical activity has exposed the marginalisation and exclusion of women's sport in explicit and institutionalised ways. However, for women in recreational and alternative physical activities like surfing, sporting experiences lie outside institutionalised structures, thus requiring…

The health and physical education (HPE) profession needs to find alternatives to its individualistic and performative focus if it is to remain relevant and meaningful for all learners. This paper presents a way of framing HPE that helps to shift the focus from the individual as autonomous decision-maker, and goes beyond sport and fitness testing…

This paper contributes to studies on sociology and the body by exploring my bodily experiences as an Australian elite swimmer in an autoethnographic framework. More specifically, it focuses on the relationship between the regulatory practices of others on my body and my development of self-regulatory practices. The stories in this paper reveal…

This paper makes use of critical discourse analysis and Bourdieu's theoretical framework to explore rural young women's meanings of health and fitness and how the healthism discourse is perpetuated through their experiences in school physical education (PE). The young women's own meanings are explored alongside interview data from their school PE…

The article builds on a number of recent critical reviews to argue that claims that we are experiencing an obesity crisis are almost entirely without foundation. The possibility is explored that this crisis is manufactured through a complex process of the social production of knowledge. The article marshals evidence to challenge the basis upon…

A physically active lifestyle can be empowering for young women in allowing them to resist many of the dominant and limiting discourses around femininity and gender. In finding pleasure in their physical state a positive sense of self is embodied and long-term engagement in a physical culture can be fostered. However, research repeatedly cites…