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In recent years, socially critical scholars have argued that love, as a moral basis for socio-critical work, should not be colorblind or power blind and that marginalized populations may understand caring within their sociocultural context, creating spaces for youth and teachers to challenge the racism, sexism, class exploitation and linguicism imposed on their communities. While there is advocacy of love in education and physical education, there is little research that aims to explore how pre-service teachers' (PSTs') conceptions change across time. The aim of this study was to explore PSTs' changing perceptions of love as they worked in an activist sport project with youth from socially vulnerable backgrounds. Participatory action research framed this four-semester research project. Participants included the lead researcher, four PSTs and 110 youth. Data collected included the following: (a) the lead researcher's field notes; (b) collaborative PSTs' group meetings; (c) PSTs' generated artifacts; and (d) PSTs' focus groups and interviews. Data analysis involved induction and constant comparison. The PSTs understood that love was represented by the following: (a) creating democratic spaces for students to care for each other and their community; (b) trusting and understanding the students, and dreaming possible futures with them; (c) being the best teacher in order to facilitate students' learning; and (d) making sure all students are included. We concluded that the PSTs' embodied experiences of oppression and the reflexive experience lived in the activist approach created a space for the PSTs to see themselves in the youth, reconnect with their own identity and develop empathy and love for the diverse youth.

During the first few months of the pandemic, professional sport around the globe stopped, as competitions and leagues were cancelled, postponed, or went into hiatus while sport administrators scrambled to work out ways to reboot their product in a COVID-19 world. Sport media outlets were faced with the task of reporting on sport and filling the void for fans in the absence of any live content. This article is concerned with the content, both in quantity and quality that fans of women's sport could consume in those first months. In the context of the current "boom" in women's professional sports, we draw on the analysis of two online sport media sites to consider the narratives of female athletes that fans had access to. The findings suggest that during the beginning of the pandemic sport stories about women were largely erased and replaced by those appealing to a very different fan market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intersection of sport and education is a potentially powerful site for the production of class and gender. This paper examines how the relationship between sport and education can also serve to (re)produce ideas about "race". Drawing on research conducted during my time as a coach of the first XV rugby team at an elite private school in Australia, I consider how whiteness creates the "other". In particular I highlight how, despite their absence, the Pacific Island "other" is (re)produced through stories that coaches share during training. These stories revolve around the themes of the "natural", fear and violence and commodity. As themes they resonate with a larger meta-narrative that informs dominant "white" culture on Pacific Islanders in Australia. Such stories have the power to shape students' subjectivities, both of themselves and Pacific Islanders. Deconstructing the white-stream narrative identifies sport settings in education as important pedagogical sites where "race", class and gender are learned. As such, there is a need to utilise critical pedagogical approaches in the education of sports coaches.

This paper examines the usage of "race" in high school physical education textbooks in Australia. In particular, it examines the concept of biological "race" in connection with human performance in sport. DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. A content analysis of physical education textbooks in Australia suggests that they are sites that continue to perpetuate myths of "race" and the "science" related to it. As such the utilization of biological "race" as a variable for athletic performance naturalizes embedded biases, is anti-scientific and is potentially indicative of other racist practices within education. Further this commonsense understanding of biological "race" continues to develop uncritically and unchecked. University students in the fields of exercise science and physical education generally develop from students who excelled in high school physical education (PE). The power of curriculum and pedagogy result in the reproduction of biological "race" that has become reified in the field of physical education. (Contains 1 table.)

In Australia and New Zealand recognition of Polynesians is almost exclusively defined by their physicality. Sought after for size and strength on the sporting field, excellence in sport is arguably regarded as a life goal in itself. This paper will examine how this situation arose and the implications for Polynesians living in Australia. For a working-class community struggling with rapidly diminishing job opportunities and a high cost of living, sport is increasingly regarded as the only avenue out of poverty. With comparatively low rates of educational achievement keeping many in "blue collar" jobs, there are consequences for health and health literacy, particularly with regard to obesity-related illness and premature mortality from otherwise preventable diseases. This paper will discuss the findings of two studies: an ethnographic project exploring the rugby life histories of 15 Polynesian men in Melbourne and qualitative interviews with 67 Polynesians in Sydney and the Hunter region about their perceptions of health and lifestyle. It will argue success in sport is inextricably bound up with cultural pride and identity. The sporting domain therefore has the potential to allow a migrant minority a "voice" in other areas of civic engagement. In this way, rather than a sporting career coming at the expense of an education, participation and achievement in sport should provide a background to improving culturally targetted programs around improving outcomes in education and health awareness.