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The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on all levels of education has been well documented. In this article, the authors drew on self-study methodology to explore how one member of the research team applied principles of democratic pedagogy in response to COVID-19 enforced changes to a service-learning course in a three-year undergraduate degree. The findings indicate that the disruptions provided a catalyst for the lecturer to reflect on his own beliefs and practices, and explore new ways of assessing students in an SL course. The article discusses the potential implications of these findings for higher education as further pivoting between face-to-face, online, and hybrid teaching becomes commonplace. We see potential for greater contributions from students in higher education’s increasingly blended learning environments. We argue that negotiating content and assessment presents a genuine opportunity to engage students in actively thinking about their own learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

: A focus on equity, democracy and social justice in HPE is pertinent in an era where there are growing concerns about the impact of neoliberal globalisation and precariousness of society (Kirk 2020). Although there is advocacy for teaching approaches in HPE that address issues of social justice, there is limited empirical research of teachers enacting critical pedagogies in HPE classrooms. : To identify school HPE teaching practices that promote social justice through practical enactment across three different participating countries. : The investigation involved classroom observations of and post-lesson interviews with 13 purposively selected high school health and physical education teachers from three different countries. A total of 20 HPE lessons were observed. The participants included seven male and six female teachers ranging in age from 25 to 55 years with between 3- and 25-years teaching experience. The setting for data collection was compulsory co-educational practical HPE classes with 13-15-year-old students in four schools in New Zealand, four schools in Sweden and three schools in Norway. : This study employed Critical Incident Technique (CIT) methodology (Flanagan 1954), involving data collection through exploratory observations and stimulated-recall interviews (Lyle 2003). The classroom observations focused on identifying incidents that appeared to be addressing issues of social justice. The use of a multi-national observer team was a key principle of the study and was based on the proposition that local researchers familiar with context come with taken-for-granted assumptions about teachers' practices. Data were analysed through a six-phase thematic analysis approach (Braun and Clarke 2013). This involved three stages: individually, collectively by the researchers in each country, and finally through the whole multi-national research team. : The data analysis resulted in three primary themes; (1) relationships, (2) teaching for social cohesion, and (3) explicitly teaching about and acting on social inequities. This paper uses critical pedagogy as a lens to report on the third theme. In this paper, we present three subthemes; (1) Teaching as 'equity not equality', (2) promoting marginalised groups (3) and teacher critical reflection as examples of explicit critical pedagogies taking action for social justice in HPE. : Although, the findings presented in this paper are examples of explicit teacher actions that aim to address social inequity, we suggest that teaching for social justice requires teachers to take action on social inequities and also to teach about social injustice to prepare students to become agents for change and act on social inequities themselves, beyond HPE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical Education (PE) teachers have previous experiences that both shape their particular beliefs about the role and purpose of this school subject as well as their pedagogical practice. The present study aims to examine and deepen our knowledge of future Spanish PE teachers' previous experiences of and beliefs about PE that condition their pedagogical practice and intentionality within this school subject. The data reported on in this paper were generated through questionnaires, life-history stories and semi-structured interviews with 24 initial teacher education students in the second year of a degree specialising in PE at a Spanish university. The data was analysed using content and narrative (thematic) analysis. The students, far from being tabula rasa, in their responses show how their previous socialisation period, their subjectivities and identities constitute particular beliefs about PE teaching. More specifically, the results reveal four key themes in the student teachers' experiences and beliefs that represent four different factors influencing future PE teacher identities: (1) 'Sport'; (2) 'PE for health'; (3) 'A focus on pedagogy'; and (4) 'A critical orientation'. In conclusion, the study reaffirms the need for further reflection on how previous experiences and beliefs influence the development of professional teacher identities as part of initial teacher education in PE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]