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Politics and pragmatics are central and inseparable features of curriculum reform. In a federated system like Australia, many individuals and organisations are invested in reform at the national and jurisdictional level. This paper focuses on the policy work and roles of key actors positioned at the interface of national and state-based curriculum development, and at the juncture of curriculum policy and pedagogic practice. These were individuals formally identified as 'curriculum leaders' in the enactment of the Australian Curriculum in Health and Physical Education (ACHPE). The paper centres on data collected from eight (n = 8) curriculum leaders via semi-structured interviews. All were prospectively influential figures in shaping the path of the ACHPE. Our research explored the nature of their enactment work and how they were variously positioned and positioned themselves in relation to key ACHPE discourses. Analysis uses the policy actor/policy work framework as a starting point for deeper, Foucauldian informed analysis which provides insights into the complex nature of curriculum leadership by considering the additional (in)formal work and roles of these high-ranking policy actors. Data and discussion extends understanding of curriculum enactment as a process that spans policy networks and reveals the nuanced nature of curriculum leadership associated with curriculum reform.

Policy classifies and shapes people/subjects in particular kinds of ways. Focusing on the context of Health and Physical Education (HPE), this paper analyses policy documents from Australia, the United States of America (USA) and Wales. We pay particular attention to how learners are represented within and across the three policy documents, and we apply Bacchi's 'What's the Problem Represented to be?' approach to guide the analysis. For us, problematization is a fruitful and positive process that enables educators to engage with a critical dialogue regarding the policies they are expected to enact. Our analysis highlighted that common across the policies were overlapping discourses of idealism, neoliberalism, healthism, and individualism, which serve to reinforce deficit language and a focus on what learners 'lack'. The problem of 'learner as lacking' is represented within the policies via at least three subject positions: 'the sedentary learner', 'the un-educated learner' and 'the naïve learner'. The findings suggest that the three policies were producing an ideal and perhaps impossible learner (subject) whilst at the same time representing the learner as a problem that the policy could 'fix'. This paper is important because it: (i) demonstrates how certain discourses and voices are amplified and silenced within curriculum policy documents and policy work more broadly; (ii) makes educational and health politics visible; and (iii) creates space for the profession to develop greater critical consciousness related to policy. In terms of future directions, we urge curriculum policy writers and other stakeholders to carefully consider how learners are categorised, represented and governed in and through policy. If curriculum policies, by their very nature, need to produce problems -- in this case, the (im)possible subject - we invite educators to engage in critical conversations regarding the policies they are expected to enact.

Introduction: Even though advocacy for poststructural feminist lenses to change/challenge physical education (PE) has grown over the years, there is an evident gap in qualitative research using poetic forms of representation in PE. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to use a poststructural feminist framework to challenge a particular kind of hegemonic reproduction of PE, particularly to explore the notion of 'Joe Wicks "as" PE'. Participants and settings: Collaborative autoethnography framed this study and participants included three queer leaning female-identified early/mid-career PE teacher educators. Data collection/analysis: Over the course of eight weeks, we collected and generated a variety of texts individually and collectively. To capture our reactions, we decided to collect data around two 'prompts', namely the recorded podcast titled 'Is Joe Wicks the face of PE?' of an Association Internationale des Écoles Supérieures d'Éducation Physique (AIESEP) hosted chat, and our participation in a 9 am 'PE with Joe' session. We presented the data gathered in this project poetically. Findings: We divided the findings into two parts corresponding with our responses (collaborative autoethnographies) to the two themes, namely 'We can't fix this/that' (aka 'Banging our heads against a brick wall') and 'Joe Wicks as PE' (aka 'Feminist killjoys'). Implications: We believe that a poetic representation, in addition to nurturing and amplifying the emotional and lyrical data collected, presented an opportunity to contribute to, and extends this kind of representational style in PE. In addition to this, collaborative autoethnography allowed us as a community to advance scholarship and provides a space for collective empowerment.

Artefacts are an important part of policy work, and a means of representation, translation, re-negotiation, and resistance of policy. While research has established their integral role in policy enactment, little research has examined the production and/or dissemination of artefacts by teacher educators. This paper reports and analyses the production and re-production of a specific set of artefacts, arising from the policy work of four teacher educators seeking to influence the interpretation and enactment of the Australian Curriculum in Health and Physical Education (AC HPE). Analysis and discussion pursue: the rationale for producing a set of artefacts focusing on a particular feature of the AC HPE; the processes of artefact production; actions designed to activate and re-present the artefacts; and emerging evidence of uptake and impact. The relationship of artefacts to policy work is shown to be strategically significant for teacher educators, teachers and others invested in new curriculum developments, and is characterised as both fluid and generative. We argue that artefacts have important performative policy potential and play a key role in supporting and shaping curriculum policy enactment.

This paper aims to summarise peer-reviewed literature into the mental health of transgender young people within a secondary schooling environment. A scoping review was conducted using literature across four databases. The search was limited to English language peer-reviewed articles that reported upon the association between school factors and the mental health outcomes of transgender young people in secondary schools. The review resulted in seven relevant studies, which reported numerous school factors related to mental health outcomes for transgender young people. The factors that related to mental health of transgender young people in schools include peer victimisation and bullying, perceived safety and a sense of school belonging or connectedness. Clinical and practical implications are provided for policy makers, educational institutions and school mental healthcare professionals. It is recommended that future research is needed to investigate the mental health services provided within the schooling environment.

LGBTQ + students from diverse ethnic backgrounds studying in higher education institutions (HEI) continue to face high levels of marginalisation due to the intersections of their identities. These students have distinct needs and require specialised support that are currently not being met. This scoping review aims to consolidates literature of diversity and inclusion strategies implemented by HEIs to support LGBTQ + students from diverse ethnic backgrounds. It also strives to determine the degree to which these strategies have been evaluated and their level of efficacy. This study utilised Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) scoping review framework, yielding 28 relevant publications. The diversity and inclusion strategies outlined in the studies for this scoping review include tangible strategies such as dedicated queer inclusive spaces on campus, and support services such as mentoring, counselling and peer programmes. While diversity and inclusion strategies exist in HEI, they are sporadic, lack theoretical grounding, and are often inaccessible to LGBTQ + students from diverse ethnic backgrounds. This scoping review calls for HEI diversity and inclusion efforts to be reimagined through a queer and intersectional perspective. This scoping review can inform policy, practice, and enhance understanding of diversity and inclusion strategies in HEI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Recent critiques of twenty-first century physical education (PE), and by association physical education teacher education (PETE), position the discipline as largely uncontested, unproblematised and uncritical. This critique encourages researchers to re-consider the nature of PE and what it means to move, be moved, value movement or be physically educated. Much literature also supports the claim that young people, especially young women are not as convinced of the value of PE as their teachers are, and hence question the educative or pleasurable value of PE, and the kinds of movement activities it precipitates. As a consequence, prescriptive unimaginative 'straight' pedagogies that restrict teacher creativity dominant PE classrooms, giving rise to ongoing exclusions and maintenance of a space where the embodied experience of moving in the world is foreclosed to many young women. This paper engages with the discomfort of change in PE/PETE, alongside the tiresome narrative around the 'problem' of/with young women and movement to consider the question, 'what might an embodied form of pedagogy in PE look like for young women?' Purpose: To address this question the paper empirically and pedagogically rethinks the educative purpose/potential of the discipline for young women in relation to embodied learning and pleasure. By deploying a reconceptualization of Peter Arnold's notion of 'in' movement, the paper offers PE/PETE practitioners practical examples of embodied pedagogies by way of pre-text vignettes with the potential to elicit movement pleasure and meaning, critique taken-for-granted assumptions, and as such enable the lifelong valuing of movement for and by young women. Methodology: This paper begins with a number of claims about the uncontested, uncritical and unimaginative state of PE/PETE and the pedagogical impact of this on learners and educators. This is then anchored to findings from a set of empirical data that explored the concept of embodied learning in the context of 'fire-fighting camps for girls'. This anchoring is done by using the work of Arnold and others to support an exploration and subsequent development of embodied pedagogies. As such the paper dwells only briefly on the empirical aspects of the data, preferring instead to focus on putting Arnold to work theoretically and pedagogically, arguably a complex task and yet important as his work forms the underlying assumptions of many PETE courses and international PE curricula. Findings: A number of pre-text vignettes in the form of postcards, photographs, videos, a poem, and a letter are shared as stand-alone pedagogical stimulus material that respond to calls to offer alternative, critical and non-normative choices to PE/PETE practitioners and their students. These pre-text vignettes use themes as their starting point and each is accompanied by a brief analysis as well as suggestions for how they might usefully be used as teaching and learning resources in a classroom. Thus, the vignettes pedagogically engage with the discomfort of change in PE/PETE whilst also disrupting the tiresome narrative around the 'problem' of/with young women and movement.

Past research in Health and Physical Education has repeatedly highlighted that curriculum development is an ongoing, complex and contested process, and that the realisation of progressive intentions embedded in official curriculum texts is far from assured. Drawing on concepts from education policy sociology this paper positions teacher educators as key policy actors in the interpretation and enactment of new official curriculum texts. More specifically, it reports research that has explored four teacher educators' engagement with a specific feature of the new Australian Curriculum in Health and Physical Education (AC HPE); five interrelated propositions or 'key ideas' that underpinned the new curriculum and openly sought to provide direction for progressive pedagogy in Health and Physical Education. The paper provides conceptual and empirical insight into teacher educators consciously positioning themselves as policy actors, motivated to play a role in shaping policy directions and future curriculum practices. As such, the teacher educators in this project are identified as policy entrepreneurs and provocateurs. The paper details a dialogic research process between the researchers that was designed to make curriculum interpretation a more transparent, collaborative and generative process. The data reported illustrates the research process supporting teacher educators to engage in productive debate about the possible meanings and enactment of the five propositions. Analysis reveals differing perspectives on the propositions and a shared investment in efforts to support their progressive intent. Empirically, the paper highlights the critical role that teacher educators will play in the ongoing enactment of a new curriculum that is overtly identified as 'futures oriented'. Conceptually, the paper adds depth and sophistication to understandings of teacher educators as policy actors. Methodologically, we propose that the research process described can be usefully adopted by other teacher educators and teachers engaged in similar processes of curriculum development, interpretation and enactment.

Opportunities exist for Australian schools to benefit from the inclusion of martial arts in the Australian Curriculum Health and Physical Education and the pending inclusion of Taekwondo in the national Sporting Schools program. The greatest challenge for introducing martial arts into schools lies with instruction. This qualitative case study explores Taekwondo as part of a co-curricular sports program for Years 7-12 students at an elite private boys' school in Melbourne, gauging the benefits for learning, health, and wellbeing of students. Themes emerging from thematic data analysis: confidence, discipline, respect, and fitness resonate with prior literature. New phenomena are benefits of leadership irrespective of age and Taekwondo's positioning as a non-traditional indoor sport, inclusive of students unfamiliar with or disengaged from traditional team sports. The study suggests traditional Taekwondo can promote self-regulation in education and may usefully expand school-based offerings and repertoires in line with curriculum policy reform.

Background: Interest in and debates around meaningful movement and embodiment in physical education (EPE) have grown over the last ten years. The quality of these discussions centre on a degree of conceptual clarity for talking pedagogically about embodiment, and consideration of ways of applying it in practice in meaningful ways. The aim of this study is to systematically analyse the theoretical concept of embodiment presented within physical education (PE) literature, in order to support a conceptual clarity upon which to build well-grounded pedagogical insights and practices for school-teachers and their students, as well as PE teacher educators. Method: A narrative literature review methodology was used to identify twenty-three (23) papers from peer-reviewed literature between 2010 and 2021 that had some focus on embodiment. These were analysed using [Rodgers, B. L. 2000. "Concept Analysis: An Evolutionary View." In Concept Development in Nursing: Foundations, Techniques, and Applications, edited by B. K. Rodgers and K. A. Knafl, 77–102. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders.] theoretical evolutionary concept analysis method to systematically identify characteristics associated with the concept in published literature. Evolutionary concept analysis typically involves a six-phase process of usage over time. Data analysis involved the systematic extraction and analysis of the literature for surrogate terms, related concepts, attributes, antecedents, consequences, and references to the concept. Results: Despite conceptual variances across the articles analysed, a set of common attributes that included intentionality, affect, meaning, sharing, and unity were identified. The review identified potential consequences of EPE including deeply transformative and meaningful change in the learner, the context, and the teacher. Events, situations or phenomena that precede EPE are broadly linked to the teacher, the learner, and the context. Conclusions: The concept of embodiment as it pertains to its theoretical/philosophical deployment in PE, is both complex and varied, limiting its potential to inform the pedagogical practices of teachers and therefore realise the consequences espoused. To temper this disconnect the paper provides accessible, yet provisional guidance for teachers via clusters of familiar characteristics with accompanying descriptions of what the literature suggests as important for embodied approaches. Together the tables and analysis encourage and enable educators and researchers to believe in, commit to, and to operationalise embodiment as practice in their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This critical narrative review draws on bell hooks' engaged pedagogy to examine the pedagogies deployed by PE teachers and PETE educators in response to COVID-19. Full-text, empirical studies between 2020 and 2022 were accessed through Academic Search Complete, Education Database (ProQuest), Education Research Complete (EBSCO), ERIC (EBSCO), Scopus, and SPORTDiscus. In total, 86 articles were considered for full-text review, with 38 articles moving to data extraction after having met the study's inclusion criteria. We used inductive and deductive methods of data analysis. Findings are reported and discussed according to (a) the inductive identification of pedagogies deployed by PE teachers and PETE educators during COVID-19; and (b) the deductive analysis of the literature using bell hooks' engaged pedagogy as a theoretical lens. This review determined that whilst the COVID-19 pandemic may have signalled an opportunity to advance an engaged pedagogical approach in PE and PETE, there was scant evidence of teachers or researchers choosing this path. Instead, innovation, criticality, creativity, mutuality, engagement and meaningful learning was suspended in favour of day-to-day survival. Most papers focused on remote learning enablers rather than engaged pedagogy; that is, they focused on the communication technologies required to connect to online spaces and then to teach within them. We outline directions and critical challenges for PE teachers and PETE educators to develop equitable, inclusive, and empathetic classroom spaces which seek to create learning that is transformative, dynamic and holistic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental health conditions are a significant global health concern. To address this concern, sport settings are increasingly being viewed as environments in which to support individual mental health and wellbeing. Not all sports settings are, however, conducive to supporting mental health. Efforts to improve mental health in sport settings are likely to be less effective if the club culture, policy, and environment do not promote behaviors known to support mental health. Understanding the extent to which sport clubs offer environments conducive to mental health and wellbeing is important for mental health initiatives targeting sport clubs. Currently and to our knowledge, there is no known instrument that captures member/participant perceptions of how supportive the sport setting is regarding mental health and wellbeing. This study explored the content validity, internal construct validity and external construct validity of the Supporting Mental Health in Sport Instrument (SMHSI) intended to measure the extent to which sport clubs provided a supportive environment for mental health promotion. A process of reliability analysis, principal component analysis and Rasch analysis was conducted confirming the psychometric fit of the items to the overall construct. The instrument could distinguish between two sport club environments providing different levels of mental health support, demonstrating external construct validity. The instrument can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the sport club context to support mental health, to identify suitable club targets for mental health programs, to better determine training needs, or to better understand the impact of mental health programs on wider club contexts. Lay summary: Mental health promotion in sport clubs is becoming increasingly popular. The effectiveness of these promotion efforts may be compromised by the contexts in which they are delivered. This paper describes the properties of the Supporting Mental Health in Sport Instrument designed to measure the contextual support for the promotion of mental health in sport clubs. This instrument can be used by sport organizations and researchers to measure the extent to which sport club environments are supportive of the mental wellbeing of members and identify suitable targets for mental health programs. Mental health organizations looking to use sport club settings to deliver mental health interventions can use the instrument to tailor their mental health programs and resources as well as better understand the context in which their intervention is being delivered. Organizations and researchers looking to promote mental health in sport club settings can use the instrument to determine the impact of programs on the wider sporting context. Organizations and researchers can direct scarce funding and resources toward supporting sport clubs that demonstrate greatest need in relation to improving their culture and environment to better support mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How teacher educators respond as policy actors from inside spaces where multiple policies and discourses collide provides insights into the ways in which policy plays out in educational contexts. By engaging and working within the uncertain space of our own contextual 'policy storm' we provide a narrative of enactment highlighting the roles and actions of policy actors simultaneously constrained and inspired by policy. We use the policy actor framework [Ball, S.J., Maguire, M., Braun, A., & Hoskins, K. (2011a). "Policy actors: Doing policy work in schools," "Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education," 32(4), 625-639] to unpack policy meaning-making within university and faculty climates, teacher education, and curriculum reform in Health and Physical Education (HPE) in Australia. This paper has three tasks. Firstly, we set-up the conditions of uncertainty and possibility as a 'policy storm' and place where four disparate policies converged. Secondly, we provide an empirical and theoretical account of policy interpretation and enactment from the actors perspective. Finally, we test the policy actor framework to determine if it adequately describes our insider policy work. In moving beyond reductionist policy narratives we provide policy possibilities that illustrate enactment, are innovative, and explore the productive potential inside policy reform.

This paper engages with some of the opportunities and challenges presented by curriculum policy reform around the world in order to explore the enactment possibilities for educators engaging with the new Australian Curriculum Health and Physical Education (ACHPE). Tensions amidst curriculum policy reform are not unique to Australia, however, the ACHPE stands out for boldy attempting to guide pedagogy through the identification of five interrelated propositions made central to the curriculum. By focussing on the educative purpose of the learning area alongside a strength-based approach, critical inquiry, health literacy and valuing movement the five propositions signal a shift towards guiding how to enact curriculum reform. The enactment of these propositions is therefore of interest in the Australian context and to global curriculum policy observers. This paper reports upon practitioner (n = 9) initial interpretations of the five propositions and what they feel and think they might look like in their everyday work. Using an inductive approach to data analysis the paper privileges practitioner interpretations in order to build a theory that can make an account of their perceptions within the complex and contested terrain of curriculum policy reform; future possibilities for health and physical education in Australia and Internationally are teased out.

For a long time the role and lived experiences of the body in cognition and everyday life, let alone learning, has been problematised making the moving body a site of contestation. When tethered to the movement experiences of young women this contest takes on social justice imperatives destined to problematise power relations. In physical education (PE) this presents disciplinary challenges and invites critical contestations alongside opportunities for rethinking the role, impact, effect and affect of the female body in learning to move and associated pedagogies that might facilitate 'embodied learning'. This paper seeks to extend recent discussions around 'embodied learning' and 'valuing movement' in PE by exploring the educative potential of 'in' movement experiences of a group of young women (n = 39) who attended one of three fire-fighting camps for girls in North America. By using ethnographic methods the paper explores the sensory nature of 'embodied learning' in movement moments at the camps in order to inform 'embodied pedagogies' with the potential to re-inspire and re-engage young women in PE. Findings suggest that young women conceive of their bodies as a conscious collective organism that simultaneously pays cognitive, physical, and social attention to its environment and the other material and non-material objects in it. This attentiveness occurs by thinking, feeling, sensing and deriving pleasure 'in' movement with blurred boundaries between mind-body. In highlighting what 'embodied learning' for young women might feel like the paper offers ideas for 'embodied pedagogies' and encourages PE practitioners to look outside classrooms for pedagogical inspiration.

This article presents a retrospective autoethnopoetic study exploring a queer student's journey in Australian tertiary STEM education, employing queer research methodologies to illuminate the challenges encountered. Through personal narrative and poetic expression, we identify critical themes: microaggressions, discrimination, identity formation, cisheteronormative navigation, and resilience strategies. Although rooted in the first author's experiences, these insights reflect broader issues prevalent among queer students in STEM, such as the impact of discrimination and microaggressions on academic performance and well-being. This study underscores the significance of queer theory and autoethnopoetic methods in challenging normative assumptions in STEM education research, contributing to a deeper understanding of the queer academic experience. It advocates for the development of inclusive and supportive educational policies aimed at enhancing the learning environment for queer students, emphasising the need for visibility, representation, and support systems within STEM disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a curriculum learning area, physical education (PE) has continually struggled to gain status within an increasingly crowded curriculum. This frequently leads to a reduction in available time within the curriculum for PE. In Australia and internationally, this may be explained by a focus on standardised testing, though questions are also raised about the capacity of PE to contribute to broader learning outcomes within the school context. Whilst the links between physical activity (PA) more broadly and cognitive performance, brain development and executive function (EF) have been recognised, the specific role physical education (PE) has on student's academic achievement (AA) is less well established. Consequently, researchers have sought to evidence the 'value-add' of PE in order to justify its relevance and importance in the curriculum. This literature review sought to explore the association between physical education (PE) and academic achievement (AA) in other curriculum learning areas. It was guided by the research question, does physical education have measurable educative benefits/impact on student academic achievement in other curriculum learning areas? Six databases/database platforms were searched: Informit, Scopus, Web of Science, SPORTDiscus, ERIC and Ovid (including AMED, DARE, Cochrane CCTR and CDSR and PsycINFO) for articles published in English between 2004 and 2020. A total of 5,599 unique articles were returned from the searches and alerts after duplicates were removed. Articles were then screened against inclusion and exclusion criteria with 88 articles identified for full text review. This literature review reports on the final 48 peer-reviewed research articles to meet the inclusion criteria. The review of the literature suggests mixed findings regarding the association between PE and AA in other curriculum learning areas; the findings are reported as having 'effect', 'no effect' or 'inconclusive effect'. Collectively, the 'effect' studies indicate that relationships exist between PE, AA and EF. This conclusion is consistent across school settings, study methodology and intervention design. However, the 'no effect' studies indicate that there is no relationship between PE, AA and EF. Whilst, the 'inconclusive effect' studies collectively indicate an array of inconclusive relationships between a variety of indices associated with PE, PA, AA and/or EF. The 'no effect' and 'inconclusive effect' conclusions are irrespective of methodology or intervention design, regardless of the approach used and measurement tools, the findings were the same. Studies that increased the amount of PA students were undertaking by the increasing time dedicated to PE did not report any negative impact of student achievement and grades. In regards to the research question, the evidence is highly mixed as to the potential impact PE can have on AA in other learning areas. What is certain from the studies reviewed is that participation in PE does not have any negative impact on student AA. The review highlights a number of limitations with existing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]