Community connections in health and physical education: a reflection of stakeholder experiences

ABSTRACT

Community development research suggests that positive partnerships and connections between groups can result in stronger, more resilient and productive communities. Despite community connections featuring increasingly at a curriculum level in countries such as Australia and New Zealand, research is only beginning to explore the nuanced processes that precede the creation and sustenance of connections between students, teachers and their local communities. Drawing upon research from a broader study, this paper explores ‘Take Action’ a Health and Physical Education unit of work aiming to create meaningful and sustainable connections between students, teachers and their local communities. The work of Stephen Ball and colleagues is used as a lens through which to understand the enactment of Take Action as an extension of policy. The findings illuminate a range of processes that contributed towards a failure to develop and sustain community connections. The findings can guide the creation of meaningful and sustainable connections between students, teachers and their local communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Health and physical education
• curriculum
• community connection

Disclosure statement

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

Notes on contributors

Georgia McGrath is a research assistant and PhD student in the Faculty of Education at Monash University, Australia. She is currently working alongside Dr Ruth Jeanes on an ARC linkage project ‘Participation v performance: Managing diversity in junior sport’. Her PhD explores informal sport participation and social media-driven sporting communities.

Dr Laura Alfrey is a Senior Lecturer within the Faculty of Education at Monash University, with her main responsibilities relating broadly to Health and Physical Education. Her research has inclusion, teacher professional learning and sociology as its central threads. Recent publications have explored phenomena such as fitness testing as a context for learning, critical inquiry and stereotypes in Physical Education.

Dr Ruth Jeanes is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Monash University and courses leader for the Faculty’s Health and Physical Education Degree programs. Ruth’s research interest focuses on sport, social inclusion and community development. She is currently working on an ARC linkage project, ‘Participation v performance: Managing diversity in junior sport’.

ORCID

Georgia McGrath http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3261-5889

Ruth Jeanes http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3907-0108