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For more than 40 years, health and physical education (HPE) academics in universities and teacher education colleges have drawn attention to issues of social justice specific to the context of PE and advocated for teachers in fields, gymnasiums and other physical activity spaces to do a better job of promoting more equitable outcomes for all students. Building on this advocacy, in the late 1990s, countries such as Sweden, Norway and New Zealand designed HPE curricula that address social justice. However, limited research has focused specifically on the enactment of social justice in HPE practice. Drawing on a larger international project involving Sweden, Norway and New Zealand the aim of this article is therefore to explore the constitution of social justice pedagogies across these three different HPE contexts and more specifically how HPE teaching practice may be understood from regulative, normative and cultural perspectives on social justice. The data reported on in this paper were generated from educational acts, curriculum documents, observations of HPE lessons in each of the three countries and follow-up teacher interviews. In order to analyse the data, we employed Scott's (2008. Institutions and organizations: Ideas and interests (3rd ed). Sage) institutional theory to further understand and discuss the enactment of social justice across the three different countries in HPE practice. In our representation and analysis of the findings we draw attention to how social justice pedagogies are informed differently by institutionalised governing systems and therefore they may be enacted differently by teachers in different societies. In particular, we highlight the influence of (i) regulative; (ii) normative; (iii) cultural-cognitive elements on practice. We conclude by pointing out the complex interplay between regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements that both enable and constrain HPE teachers' enactments of social justice in HPE practice.

In a world of increasing diversity in which many established democracies are now consumed by capitalist individualism and protectionist ideals, a focus on equity and social justice is particularly pertinent. For many years, scholars have proposed that schools have the educational responsibility to prepare children for peaceful living in a heterogeneous society and claimed that health and physical education (HPE) activities at school can enhance interpersonal relations, and social cohesion. This paper explores the definition of social cohesion, as well as theories that support its inclusion in school practices before drawing on observational and interview data from of an international project that reveal how HPE teachers across three different countries teach for social cohesion. In our analysis of the data, we employ Allport’s ‘Contact Theory’ (1954) and Pettigrew’s (1998) extension of this theory to conceptualise and interpret the teaching for social cohesion in HPE practice. Within the overarching theme of teaching for social cohesion we present and discuss five sub-themes as examples of the teachers’ pedagogies: (1) a focus on inclusiveness; (2) the inclusion of culturally inclusive practices; (3) building teacher/student and student/student relationships; (4) planning and structuring activities for students to work together in heterogeneous teams while focusing on cooperation; and (5) focusing on personal and social responsibility by encouraging adherence to the principles of fair play and democratically determined rules. We conclude by stating that HPE should be recognised for its role in creating opportunities for constructive social interaction between students of difference, which can contribute to greater inclusion, social cohesion and ultimately social justice in society.

This article explores the relationship between physical education as a school subject, and physical activity health initiatives in schools. Drawing on curriculum theory and discourse theory we stud...

A feature of academic literature on physical education teacher education (PETE) is the expectation that it can and should impact upon student teachers' beliefs and prospective practices in some significant ways. This is despite research over the last 20 years or more alluding to the apparent failure of PETE to ‘shake or stir’ (Evans et al., 1996) what might be termed the (typically conservative and conventional) pre-dispositions of student and early career PE teachers. In this article, we examine the perceptions of PE student teachers in Norway in order to ascertain just what it is that makes them so resistant to change and, for that matter, such infertile ground for sowing the seeds of reflexivity. The study involved semi-structured interviews with 41 PE student teachers from the three routes through teacher education available at Nord University College (Nord UC). Among the main themes identified in the data were the PE students' perceptions of: the purposes (and ostensible benefits) of school PE and PE...

This paper examines the place of reflexivity in the ‘philosophies’ and practices of physical education (PE) teacher educators in Norway. Using a case study approach to one quite typical institution delivering physical education teacher education (PETE) in Norway, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 teacher educators. Analysis of the data generated by the study was inspired by the principles of grounded theory. Noteworthy among the findings was that the teacher educators viewed learning to teach PE in much the same way as they viewed PE itself—as an essentially practical process revolving around the teaching and coaching of sports skills. Consequently, there was little evidence that the teacher educators either engaged themselves or sought to develop in their students anything other than weaker forms of reflexivity; that is, focusing on the student teachers' development of their practical sporting and teaching skills. The discussion focuses on the contextual constraints—in the form of a combi...