Unsettling Matters for Physical Education in Higher Education: Implications of “New Times”

Abstract

Many contemporary social commentators claim that we are now living in “New Times.” Other labels used for the same period (by different commentators) are postmodeenity, the information age, late-modernity, high-modernity, the age of uncertainty. In defining these times, it is common to read of the information explosion, the increased pace of material and institutional change, globalization, information technologies, increaed reliance on experts and abstract systems, the end of permanent structures or knowledge or meaning, reflexive modernization, the risk society, and a heightened level of increased anxiety. This paper discusses the evolving relationship between identity, knowledge, change, and uncertainty in the context of new times and explores the issue of the possible consequences of new times for physical education in higher education.