Hawaii's Interscholastic Athletics program involves 38 high schools in a voluntary program designed to develop athletically talented students and to foster student and community identity with the schools. Although the ten-year old program offering sixteen team and individual sports has been successful, several issues remain unresolved in the areas…

This article states findings on the fitness and physcial activity patterns of youth as determined from the National Children and Youth Fitness Study. The role and effectiveness of schools and parks and recreation programs in improving the fitness of youth is explored, and suggestions for parents and citizens are offered. (DG)

The relative effectiveness of a structured physical fitness program for fifth-grade students was compared with the effectiveness of the customary physical education activities. Students in the structured exercise program showed significant improvement in flexibility, strength, and endurance, and maintained gains during the summer. (Author/PP)

The authors examine the various communities of practice that were formed throughout a teacher development project that included a formal mentoring component. The authors describe a theoretical approach to understanding learning in communities of practice and present an approach for analyzing professional learning resulting from social interactions…

Helping young children see themselves as learners and movers requires mutual cooperation and support among teachers, families, and children. Physical educators at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, in collaboration with pre-K teachers at two local schools, created the Tots in Action program for that purpose. The authors tell how the…

This article is based on materials from a questionnaire survey of tenth-graders in the city of Toliatti [Togliatti], conducted by the monitoring division of the Resource Center of the Department of Education. A total of 958 adolescents in eighteen schools took part in the survey in March and April 2005. Nine schools served as "base"…

This article analyses interim findings of an ongoing action research project into the use of assessment criteria and grade descriptors in the assessment process. The project is multidisciplinary and covers areas as diverse as Sports Sociology, Economics, Youth and Community Studies, and Education. The idea is to equip first-year students with the…

A systematic review was conducted to examine the barriers to, and facilitators of, physical activity among young people (11-16 years). The review focused on the wider determinants of health, examining community- and society-level interventions. Four trials and 16 studies of young people's views were included. Evidence for the effectiveness of the…

The study investigated the effectiveness of a school-based movement programme for a population of 5 to 7 year old children. Performance profiles on the Movement ABC were used to classify the children and to assess skill changes over time. Children were assigned to four different groups: motor learning difficulty (n = 10), borderline motor learning…

The M-5 Project is a sequential physical education program for children in the primary grades and intermediate grades. It embodies the main concepts of the movement education approach. Activities are individualized, based on needs identified by results of physical fitness tests, that are carried out in 30-minute daily sessions at a series of six…

The method of teaching physical education described in this book integrates current knowledge of how and why people learn into an individualzied instruction model. It is hoped that this humanistic approach to teaching physical education will overcome the problems of group instruction and stimulate greater possibilities of accomplishment. The…

The procedures, analyses, results, and discussion of a project which compared three methods of physical education programing for 96 emotionally disturbed children (6 to 14 years of age) in an 8-week summer camp program held during two summers are presented. The first year's program is seen to have served as a field test, with the most reliable…

Regional surveys of 32 Scottish schools, case study of 153 fourth-year pupils in 1 school, and post-school sampling of 68 individuals revealed similarities in organization but differences in aims, approaches, and attitudes toward leisure education. School-sponsored programs had little influence on leisure time use of adolescents or in post-school…

This study examined the efficacy of a school-based exercise and nutrition program with a parent component. Third-grade children (N = 238) from six elementary schools participated in the study, with three schools randomly assigned to a program group and the other three schools to a control group. The program group received a health-related fitness…

This study focused on all teachers, in the public schools of Louisiana in grades 6-12, who taught health and physical education at least 50 percent of the time. A 53 percent return was obtained, which represented 917 teachers in 381 schools. Responses were received from all 64 parishes and the two city school systems in the state. The study…