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Korfball was invented in a mixed Primary School in Amsterdam in the early 1900s [IKF (2006). Korfball in the Mixed Zone. KNKV; Summerfield and White (1989). Korfball: A Model of Egalitarianism. Sociology of Sport Journal, 6, 144–151]. The main catalyst for the development of korfball was a need for a competitive mixed sport that relied on cooperation and meant boys and girls could participate on a level playing field [Summerfield and White (1989). Korfball: A Model of Egalitarianism. Sociology of Sport Journal, 6, 144–151]. Previous research into gender in physical education (PE) has found that young people gain gender-related understandings through PE [Azzarito (2009). The Panopticon of PE: pretty, active and ideally white. Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy, 14(1), 19–39; Azzarito and Solomon (2009). An Investigation of Students' Embodied Discourses in PE: A gender project. Journal of Teaching in PE, 28, 173–191; Azzarito and Solomon (2010). A Reconceptualization of PE: The intersection of gender/race/social class. Sport, Education and Society, 10(1), 25–47; Chalabaev et al. (2013). The Influence of Sex Stereotypes and Gender Roles on Participation and Performance in Sport and Exercise: Review and future directions. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 136–144; Wright (1995). A Feminist Poststructuralist Methodology for the Study of Gender Construction in PE: Description of a Study. Journal of Teaching in PE, 15, 1–24]. [Thorne (1993). Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School. Rutgers University Press] argues that to remove binary thinking and notions of hegemonic masculinity and femininity, PE lessons should promote equality between girls and boys, reflect cooperation and teamwork between all, and demonstrate to students that gender inclusivity is achievable. This paper will consider findings from a larger ethnographic study, in order to discuss how junior korfball players understand gender within their individual PE settings. It will also seek to discover whether players believe gender discourses can be negotiated in PE through the use of korfball. Players frequently referred to the limitations of their current PE experiences and suggested that the mixed element of korfball could provide opportunities for boys and girls to come together in PE. Players described how the structure of the korfball game reflects a need to use both sexes, which could improve mixed PE lessons. Players also discussed preconceived ideas about boys' games and girls' games, which led to problematic actions and interactions in current mixed PE settings. Findings suggest that embodied practices which demonstrate the abilities of girls, as well as boys, could lead to resistance of dominant discourses which reinforce gender difference and the physical inferiority of girls. They might provide a space which alters dominant discourse often reproduced in PE and sporting environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We examined the effect of a comprehensive school physical activity program (CSPAP) on gross motor skills in children. Methods: Participants were 959 children (1st-6th grade; Mean age = 9.1 ± 1.5 years; 406 girls, 553 boys) recruited from 5 low-income schools receiving a year-long CSPAP intervention. Data were collected at the beginning of the school year and at a 36-week follow-up. Gross motor skills were assessed using the Test for Gross Motor Development (3rd ed.) (TGMD-3) instrument. Multi-level mixed effects models were employed to examine the effect of CSPAP on TGMD-3 scores, testing age and sex as effect modifiers and adjusting for clustering of observations within the data structure. Results: There were statistically significant coefficients for time (β = 8.1, 95% CI [3.9, 12.3], p < .001) and an age × time interaction (β = -1.7, 95% CI [-2.3, -1.1], p < .001) on TGMD-3 total scores. Significant improvements were also seen for locomotor skills and ball skills sub-test scores. Conclusions: Children showed improved gross motor skill scores at the end of the 36-week CSPAP that were modified by age, as younger children displayed greater improvements in TGMD-3 scores compared to older children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current concerns about a childhood obesity crisis and children's physical activity levels have combined to justify fitness lessons as a physical education practice in New Zealand primary (elementary) schools. Researchers focused on children's understandings of fitness lessons argue that they construct fitness as a quest for an ‘ideal’ (skinny or muscular) body. The conflation of fitness with thinness, however, is complex and problematic. In this paper, we draw from research conducted with a class of primary school children in New Zealand. Drawing on the theoretical tools of Foucault and utilizing a visual methods approach, we examine how children experience school fitness lessons and construct notions of fitness, health and body. The children's responses illustrated that obesity discourses and body pedagogies ‘collided’ in a way that shaped understandings of fitness lessons in ways inextricably connected with the avoidance of being fat. The children assumed that fitness lessons increased fitness and that being fit was demonstrated by a ‘correct’ corporeal appearance. We argue that body pedagogies inside and outside the school gates shape children's ideas about the body in ways which exclude other understandings of bodies, health, and physical activity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]