On behalf of the Editorial Executive, we begin this edition expressing our condolences to the people of Christchurch, New Zealand and Sri Lanka for the recent loss of many innocent lives and devastating assault on their communities. Our condolences go out to any members of the Journal community who were directly affected by these senseless atrocities. We use this platform to affirm our commitment to the values associated with tolerance and diversity. We believe that we speak on behalf of the Health and Physical Education fraternity in believing that there is never a justification for violence or prejudice, or any behaviour that diminishes others in the name of race, religion, colour, culture, sexuality or gender. We proudly present this edition of Curriculum Studies in Health and Physical Education in a spirt of looking forward within a research community committed to improving the practices and understandings of the field and the lives of those within it. In this edition, we welcome Eimear Enright, Laura Alfrey and Göran Gerdin to an expanded editorial executive.
In the opening paper Guadalupe and Curtner-Smith report on the implementation of a negotiated curriculum strategy in a PE seeting. Located in an all-boys physical education context the research reports on changes in the engagement of learners based on their sense of agency and affiliation. As well as altering the positionality of the teacher as all-powerful, the processes of curriculum negotiation helped to unsettle dominant constructions of masculinity aligned to ideas around sporting prowess. Following this, Schenker and colleagues report on a cross cultural study of the meanings and practices associated with social justice pedagogy in HPE. Focussing on Sweden, Norway and New Zealand, the study reveals that while there are shared understandings of the pedagogic aspiration for social justice there are powerful cultural and regulatory forces that differentiate its appropriation. In the pursuit of a shared understanding of social justice pedagogies the research amplifies the importance of acknowledging ‘others’ perspectives in the progress of this endeavour.
In the third paper Pavelling and colleagues explore the ways that curriculum policy reforms have played out in Australia across the past decade. Viewing educational policy as an intensely political process they describe the ways different discourses, both national and international, impact the production and enactment of curriculum reform in PE. Using a policy trajectory framework spanning global to local forces the study explores PE curriculum reform through the processes of policy, ‘influence, production, practices and outcomes.’ Highlighting a wide range of tensions in the curriculum reform process they identify a rising concern that contemporary PE policy reform is inherently orientated towards a diminished interest in equity. Following this, Lynch and Kuntz employ an autoethnographic lens to narrate and analyse the research training experiences of a PE doctoral candidate. As a recognised pathway to contributing to the ‘stewardship’ of the discipline, the narrative captures the tensions that occur when the candidate finds herself in tension with the prevailing research paradigms of the field. In play here is a personal struggle with the commonplace frames that are being presented as a means of becoming an ‘expert’ in the field. The narrative amplifies the need for courage, resilience and commitment in the struggle against philosophical and ontological disruption.
In the fifth paper in this collection Larsson and colleagues report on an investigation of movement learning from the perspective of learners. Rather than relying on external expertise to make judgements about movement learning, the study invited the participants to make sense of their own movement acquisition. The authors draw on the works of Ryle and Polanyi to proffer an analytic framework around notions of ‘knowledge, awareness and articulation’. Through this lens, they suggest that dominant assumptions about movement learning tend to offer restrictive, instrumental accounts of this process, whereas placing the learner at the centre invites approaches to movement pedagogy where greater emphasis is placed on varying the learning medium and developing a movement learning vocabulary. In the final paper, Backman and colleagues report on a study into the ways movement content knowledge is positioned and practiced in the context of PETE programs. Seeking to move beyond the common binaries offered through the behavioural/technical and the social critical, the authors explore the epistemological foundations of how movement content knowledge is understood within PETE and its relationship with the formation of pedagogical content knowledge. Following their analysis of seven PETE programs in NSW (Australia) they conclude that contemporary understandings of movement content knowledge continue to be narrowly defined and applied, and that the field would benefit from the inclusion of broader conceptualisations of movement.
I hope, like me, you find the suite of papers presented in this edition of Curriculum Studies in Health and Physical Education interesting and engaging. On behalf of the Editorial Executive, I thank the many reviewers who have played a role in bringing this edition together look forward to sharing further scholarship with you in up-coming editions.