Infection or affection: physical literacy and the reterritorialisation of the HPE curriculum

ABSTRACT

Physical literacy has quickly become established within the broad fields of Sport, Health and Physical Education as a set of capabilities and dispositions that enable active participation in movement cultures across an individual’s lifespan. In that sense, it has become a powerful concept in terms of being a desirable outcome of education programmes for young people in all spheres of their life as well as being a powerful discourse for sport and physical activity policy for all sectors of the community. Given this, the question arises as to its relationship with physical education, as a curriculum practice in schools. In this introduction to the special edition, we propose that the theoretical tools of assemblage and territorialisation provide a way to theorise curriculum and understand how the papers might be read with a sense of coherence. We conclude by suggesting that less focus needs to be paid to defining the essence and nature of physical literacy, and more attention given to how it potentially narrows the curriculum and more questioning of whose interests are being served by advocating for its uptake in HPE.

KEYWORDS:

• Physical literacy
• HPE curriculum
• assemblage
• territorialisation

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 In this paper we use the nomenclature of and Health and Physical Education (HPE) to refer to the school subject rather than Physical Education (PE). While we acknowledge that PE is the more common term globally, we do this because the label HPE is a more encompassing nomenclature of the way the subject is practiced, particularly in Australia and New Zealand, where the authors reside.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alan Ovens

Alan Ovens is an Associate Professor in Health and Physical Education in the School of Curriculum and Pedagogy, University of Auckland. His research has a focus on humanist themes (oriented around critical pedagogy and self-study methodology) as well as a contemporary focus on postmodern themes (oriented around complexity, new materialism, and future-oriented digital pedagogies).

Eimear Enright

Eimear Enright is a senior lecturer in the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences. She teaches, researches and writes primarily about youth voice and young people's participation and learning in health and physical education, and in sport.