Pedagogies for justice in health and physical education

ABSTRACT

In developed economies, such as Australia, schooling is heavily impacted by neo-liberal and neo-conservative agendas. Policies suggest a homogeneity in students that fails to reflect regional contexts of inequality. For the new Australian Curriculum, which includes Health and Physical Education (AC: HPE), this logic prioritises consistency in content and standards for students no matter location or socio-economic circumstances. Little is known about the ‘lived’ realities of such aspirations as they relate to teaching students from disadvantaged regions. This paper reports on practitioner inquiry into a redesigned dance unit, as part of a broader investigation into the implementation of AC: HPE with disadvantaged students. We draw on literature around student engagement and Nancy Fraser’s theorisation of justice to explore the pedagogical redesign. We conclude in arguing that enhanced learning outcomes for disadvantaged students are dependent upon rich and contextualised pedagogical practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Engagement
• justice
• practitioner inquiry
• dance in HPE

Notes on contributors

Alison Wrench, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer in health and physical education in the School of Education at the University of South Australia. Her research interests include socially critical pedagogies, identity work, and gender issues related to health and physical education and physical activity more generally. Recent research projects include critical practitioner inquiry into pedagogical redesign for enhanced engagement and educational outcomes for marginalised students. This work builds on previous investigations of interrelationships between teacher subjectivities, socio-critical orientations, and body-based pedagogical practices.

Robyne Garrett, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer in physical education, dance, and teaching methodologies in the School of Education at the University of South Australia. Her research interests include gender, creative and body-based pedagogies, dance, and whiteness. Current projects include creative and body-based approaches to maths, socially just pedagogies for disadvantaged students, and whiteness investigations of curriculum. Her research methodologies include narrative storytelling, case studies, and action research approaches. Teaching roles focus on developing critical and embodied pedagogies in student teachers.

Notes

1. Virtual school bag – cultural skills and dispositions that are valued by students in spaces outside of school, and which they carry with them into schooling (Thomson, 2002).

2. Munns (2007) along with Munns and Sawyer (2013) differentiate between small e engagement as incorporating high levels of affective, cognitive and operational dimensions and big E engagement which they refer to as enduring positive relationships to education.

3. Reception is the first year of formal schooling and Year 12 the final year in South Australia.