Welcome to the first edition of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Health, Sport and Physical Education for 2016. On behalf of Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation and the Editorial team I wish everyone a happy new year. While there is still much to do, it is timely to reflect on the progress that has been made since its launch in 2010. To this end, I wish to acknowledge the contributions of the many scholars in the field who contribute, as writers and reviewers, to sustaining and growing the journal.
This edition brings together another interesting collection of papers from researchers across and beyond the Asia-Pacific Region. In the opening paper Dyson and colleagues critique the growing trend of outsourcing the delivery of physical education in the curriculum. Locating this development in the context of New Zealand these authors raise concerns about a number of unintended consequences associated with using external providers to deliver mainstream physical education programs. Among the concerns they raise is the potential for increased discontinuity in physical education programs, the rationalisation of content and an inevitable decline for teacher supply in the field. Following this Leirhaug and colleagues report on a study into assessment literacy among physical education teachers. Located in Norway, the study reports on the ways physical education teachers currently think about and engage in assessing student learning in physical education. Reflecting on their practices these teachers confirm a growing international narrative around the need for targeted professional learning to assist physical education teachers developing assessment strategies capable of enhancing student learning.
In the third paper Robinson and colleagues present an engaging critique of the uptake of corporately sponsored curriculum resources within physical education and health. Drawing on Bernstein's scholarship they critique the pedagogical work done through the uncritical adoption of corporately sponsored curriculum resources, and the product values they endorse. They call for more engagement with critical pedagogies capable of providing physical education teachers with the intellectual resources to interrogate and question the messages and assumptions that are transported in such ‘pedagogic texts’. In the next paper Gerdin reports on a study into the experiences of young males in physical education and sport classes, and how they shape their constructions of masculinity. Drawing on Foucault, Gerdin critiques the ways particular practices work to enforce gendered constructions of pleasure. Located in New Zealand, this paper provides an insightful addition to the growing body of work around cultural constructions of masculinity.
In the next paper Rosso and colleagues explore the potential for universities to participate in the Sport for Development movement. At the heart of this movement is the endeavour to use sport as a vehicle to improve the life chances of disadvantaged youth, and their communities. The authors report on preliminary research that deployed the Football United (FUn) program to show how universities can connect with marginalised communities in ways that enrich the lives of participants while contributing to a key policy goal of the higher education sector. In the final paper Elliott and colleagues critique some of the assumptions associated with participation in junior sport. While acknowledging the health benefits associated with heightened feelings of connection, enjoyment and socialisation, they raise concerns about some of the nutrition practices that are commonly adopted around children's sport. Among their concerns is the pronounced use of so-called energy drinks that are often extremely high in sugar content, and the frequent rewarding of children's participation with post game meals from popular fast food outlets. Rather than encouraging good health, such practices, they argue, could be establishing nutrition patterns that have long term negative health consequences.
I hope that, like me, you find this edition of the Journal interesting. The six papers contained within it cover a wide range of interesting and important issues and continue to the advance of health and physical education scholarship and practice.