Welcome to the first edition of Curriculum Studies in Health and Physical Education for 2023. On behalf of the Editorial Executive I pass on best wishes for a safe and prosperous year ahead. While acknowledging our 2022 award winners, being Mikael Quennerstedt for Most Outstanding Paper, and Dylan Scanlon for Most Outstanding Reviewer, I send out a thankyou to the many people who support the work of the journal. As a relatively young journal, I hope all those who have invested time and effort into supporting it’s growth feel a sense of satisfaction. While journal metrics are complicated, even convoluted, it is pleasing to see the journal enjoying a continuing upward trajectory on almost all measures. Acknowledging the benefits of strong journal metrics, the Journal Executive have made a conscious decision not to be totally beholden to their interests at the cost of core principles associated with opportunity and access.
This edition brings together an interesting suite of papers from a diverse range of scholars from different settings, contexts and experience. In the opening paper Scanlon, MacPhail, Walsh and Tannehill report on a research project undertaken in Ireland to explore the potential for an embedded approach to assessment to enhance the learning experience. Underpinned by constructivist learning principles they bring learners into the assessment design process so as to promote a more generative framework for positioning learners and learning at the centre of the assessment process. They provide valuable insights into how this might be achieved. In the second paper Hudson, Luguetti and Spaaij report on a critical review of literature into the ways in which students with refugee backgrounds are accommodated within contemporary PE and sport pedagogies. The criticality of their analysis is guided by a Freirean framework which privileges enlightenment and empowerment. They shed light on a prevailing sense of deficit within the ways pedagogies are constructed to engage refugee students. They call on PE and sport teachers to develop meaningful conversations with these learners and adopt the principles of co-design to enhance their participation in, and enjoyment of, PE and sport.
In the third paper, Tinning engages in a ‘history of the present’ to analyse the existence of PETE as a university program and the ongoing contestations that exist around defining its ‘discipline’. In his reflections Tinning describes how the pursuit of credibility and legitimation led to the privileging of the discourses that underpinned the rise of sport and movement science programs. As a critical social scholar, Tinning laments the enduring impact these discourses continue to have on the ways subject matter content knowledge is understood in contemporary HPE. Following this, Dixon and Robertson draw on Jensen’s paradigmatic work in health education to interrogate the ways health education is understood and practiced in contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand. Recognising that HPE curriculum is embedded in a critical social framework they deploy Jensen’s conceptions of moralistic and democratic paradigms to critique contemporary health education policy, curriculum and practice. They extrapolate from Jensen’s framework to consider how health, as a curriculum practice in schools, might live up to its potential.
In the fifth paper Walters, MacLaughlin and Deakin undertake a self-study to explore their respective understandings and practices around assessment in PE, with a view to forming a more generative collective position. While their personal reflections on assessment are insightful, it is the development opportunity ushered in by their convergence as a professional learning team that is most powerful. Central to their contemplations of improved practice is the promotion of co-discovery that can be nurtured through the active assemblage of communities of practice. Through their iterative research practice they show that the sum of the parts can be far greater than the parts. In the final paper, Hodges and colleagues deploy a qualitative research design to capture the perceptions and experiences of secondary pre-service PE teachers. One of the dominant themes that emerges from their data analysis is the existence of a malalignment between the pedagogies being promoted in PETE programs and school practicum settings. With a clear privileging of class management strategies in the latter, students were led to question the practical utility of the pedagogies being lauded in their PETE programs. In the interest of reconciling this tension the authors promote greater interaction and collaboration across educational sectors.
On behalf of the Editorial Executive, I look forward to continuing to share the workings of the journal with you throughout the year. Among the initiatives taking place is the development of an upcoming Special Issue focusing on Indigenous knowledges under the guidance of lisahunter, Jean Allen and Hayley McGlashan. I also remind readers that our “What are you reading?” review section is an invitation to (early-mid career) researchers to review a body of scholarly work (book, collection of chapters, etc) that they believe is of significance to theirs/others ongoing research in fields connected to curriculum studies of Health and Physical Education (see journal Aims and Scope). Happy reading!