‘Publicness of education’: framing possibilities for decolonising practices in Health and Physical Education

ABSTRACT

Calls have been made for a public pedagogy that works at the intersection of education and politics to enact a concern for publicness. These are calls for pedagogy that values plurality in human togetherness and educational conditions in which all young people can flourish. In this paper my specific focus is exploring how publicness of education can be conceived in relation to encouraging inclusive, equitable and decolonial ‘ways of being doing and knowing' in HPE. I adopt a genealogical approach to explore ‘conditions of possibility' that have contributed to durability of a ‘white' Eurocentric norm for HPE. Selected reports, curriculum documents, newspaper and reference articles are drawn on to illuminate discourses, and power relations implicated in this dominant framing. This paper represents an attempt to disrupt common sense understandings and practices of HPE founded settler-colonialism and new forms of neo-liberal colonialism. Approaches premised on activist, culturally responsive pedagogies as well as affective, embodied, relational dimensions of human togetherness are suggested. I propose that questioning ‘why' ‘how' and ‘what' is taught in HPE is critical for reframing ‘thinking and feeling’ required for pedagogical and curricular practices that can enhance educational justice for Indigenous students.

KEYWORDS:

• Publicness of HPE
• decolonising activist orientations
• Aboriginal and Torress Strait Island student disadvantage through HPE

The Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration (Education Council, 2019) identifies a key aim of Australian education jurisdictions of providing high-quality education and equitable outcomes for all students. This aim is reinforced by a ‘Commitment to Action’ recognising an indisputable responsibility for supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students¹ together with those at risk of educational disadvantage to reach their potential. In many respects, the aim and commitment are commensurate with notions of education as a ‘public’ or ‘common’ good, whereby conditions and practices enable all students to flourish (Biesta et al., 2022; Reid, 2019).

Recent policy responses have similarly identified problematics around student diversity and disadvantage to signal the urgency of addressing educational inequity founded on race, culture and ‘whiteness’ (Moodie & Patrick, 2017). The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) has, for instance, prioritised meeting the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students as well as promoting reconciliation as standards to be met by all graduate teachers (AITSL, 2011).² AITSL has also published a Capability Framework designed to build a ‘culturally responsive’ Australian teaching workforce (see AITSL, 2022). Similarly, the Australian Curriculum directs teachers to embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures as ‘cross curricular perspectives’ in all learning areas, including Health and Physical Education (HPE)³ (ACARA, 2023).

However, in reality, Australian schooling is widely characterised as inequitable and responsible for producing highly differentiated educational outcomes (Greenwell & Bonner, 2022; Reid, 2019; Sahlberg, 2022). Consequences include persistent and disproportionate disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students amongst others (Sahlberg, 2022). Moreover, deficit discourses are commonly used to individualise the responsibility of Indigenous students for their educational underachievement and/or disengagement from schooling (Whatman & Singh, 2015).

In contrast, Sahlberg (2022) argues that as the likelihood of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students ‘struggling at school [has] significantly increased during the last two decades … individualism ‘at the expense of social equity in education creates the wrong priority’ (p. 88). This paper engages with these concerns as they relate to the design and delivery of HPE curriculum and pedagogical practices. It also enters into an emergent HPE research field concerned with social justice outcomes around culture and Indigeneity.

The Yulunga: Traditional Indigenous Games resource (Edwards, 2008) has proved pivotal to endeavours of HPE educators seeking social justice outcomes through cultural inclusivity and awareness (Morrison et al., 2019). Research into the use of this resource has addressed social justice (Evans et al., 2017), cultural knowledge and engagement (Dinan Thomson et al., 2014; Louth & Jamieson-Proctor, 2019; Whatman & Meston, 2016; Williams, 2018), culturally responsive pedagogies (Wrench & Garrett 2021; 2022) and disrupting Indigenous/Western knowledge dichotomies (Pill et al., 2022). More broadly HPE researchers have also investigated decolonising approaches (Wrench, 2023), disrupting normative understandings (Whatman et al., 2017; Williams, 2014), countering disadvantage (Whatman & Singh, 2015) and racialised HPE (Williams, 2018). This paper draws on an alternative lens to explore historically contingent knowledge that have shaped HPE in Australia and attendant marginalisation of Indigenous knowledge systems. It is informed by understandings that Australia’s settler-colonial past is a presence that continues to frame the structure of the nation’s education systems (Sahlberg, 2022; Wrench, 2023; Wrench et al., 2022).

Settler-colonialism is a logic that supports the domination of ‘white’ settler interests and parallel dispossession of Indigenous peoples (Stein et al. 2020; Steinman, 2020). Of significance is the disavowal of Aboriginal sovereignty, which together with the continuing harmful impact of settler/colonialism, normalises the hegemony of ‘white’ knowledge systems evident in pedagogical practices and curricula (Bishop et al., 2021; Morrison et al., 2019; Sheppard, 2023). This is apparent in the ways Western ‘Eurocentric’ knowledge have informed the content, ways of relating and pedagogical practices of HPE (Dowling & Flintoff, 2018; Flintoff & Dowling, 2019; Wrench et al., 2022). The continuation of these influences is exemplified by HPE curricular, which privilege skills and attributes applied in ‘white’ male team sports (Dowling & Flintoff, 2018; Wrench, 2023) and/or ‘white’ middle-class practices for health, bodies and fitness (Azzarito, 2009; 2016; Tinning, 2010).

Concomitantly we see the marginalisation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, wellbeing, movement and play cultures as creditable ways of knowing, being and doing (Whatman et al., 2017; Williams, 2018; Wrench, 2019). As a consequence, it is highly unlikely that HPE educators will have experienced Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island movement cultures and health-related practices during their schooling and subsequent pre and in-service teacher education (Williams, 2018; Wrench & Garrett, 2021).

As a non-Indigenous female, this resonates with my own experiences as a student, teacher and teacher-educator in HPE. It is not until relatively recently, that I have reflected critically upon how settler-colonial models have framed the intellectual, affective and relational aspects (McDowall, 2021; Stein et al., 2020) of my practices and subjectivity as a HPE educator. Concerted and deliberate engagement with settler-colonialism, culturally responsive pedagogical practices (CRP) and decolonising approaches has unsettled my self-positioning as a socially critical HPE educator. This has also led to critical reflection about how or in what ways my pedagogical practices, ways of being and relating may/may not actually work to counter taken for granted Eurocentric narratives, discourses and relationships that continue to frame the HPE field. Important to these reflective processes have been opportunities provided by members of the 2019 Australian Association for Research in Education HPE Special Interest Group (AARE HPE SIG) and 2021 International Association for Physical Education in Higher Education (AIESEP) field. Of significance have been ongoing conversations around honouring Indigenous ways of knowing/being/doing, through HPE and teacher education.

Following these collaborations this paper attempts to develop understandings of settler-colonial discourses and how these are shaped and affirmed across historical times through policies, curricula and practices of HPE. It is my contention that such understandings are required if HPE educators are to engage with pedagogical and curricular possibilities that might actually contribute to ‘closing the educational and health gap⁴’ for Indigenous students. In this undertaking, I adopt a Foucauldian genealogical approach to explore the constitutive presence of Australia’s settler-colonial past within HPE and concomitant marginalisation of Indigenous health and movement cultures. ‘Publicness of education’ discourses frame my problematisation of the ‘whiteness’ of HPE curriculum and pedagogical practices.

In the first section of the paper, I provide a brief outline of Foucault’s theorisation of genealogical approaches, discourses and power relations. In the sections that follow I discuss the ‘publicness’ of education to consider how the HPE field as we know it is framed by the logics, practices and of settler-colonialism and new forms of colonialism enabled by neo-liberalised schooling. I conclude in discussing the ‘publicness’ of HPE as this relates to possible practices that might actually address persistent educational disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

Genealogy

Foucault argued for genealogical investigations capable of problematising contemporary ‘truth’ claims and, hence, interrogating how the present ‘inscribes and is conditioned by the historical past’ (Venn, 2006, p. 12). Foucault (1983) was not interested in seamless histories of progress, rather he investigated ‘problematics’ and concomitantly ‘conditions of possibility’ that supported the emergence of particular discourses, and ‘truths’ within given historical times and contexts (Foucault, 2000; Venn, 2006). Of significance to this paper are possibilities for troubling the deeply sedimented nature and material effects of Eurocentric HPE curricula, pedagogical practices, and simultaneous marginalisation, even erasure of Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing. That is to take up Foucault’s (1983) invocation to adopt a critically reflective and/or activist stance whereby everything should be ‘considered dangerous’. I turn next to provide a brief summary of Foucault’s theorisation of genealogy, discourses, disciplinary and bio-power relations, and government.

Working with theory

Genealogical investigations are located along an axis of discourse-power and seek to analyse discursive, institutional and societal practices so as to comprehend how and why particular understandings materialise as ‘truth’ claims (Foucault, 2007). Foucault’s initial genealogical investigations centred on rules of discourses and associated forms of knowledge. He described discourses as ‘the general domain of all statements, sometimes as an individualised group of statements, and sometimes as a regulated practice that accounts for a certain number of statements’ (1972, p. 8). As systems of statements discourses underpin ways of being and acting as well as social and cultural realities (Ball, 2013).

Foucault was particularly interested in how discourses of science work to constitute ‘truths’, which substantiate norms of behaviour and concomitantly systems of inclusion/exclusion, measurement, and categorisation (Foucault, 1982). The capacity of discursive ‘truths’ to construct normative notions about HPE curriculum, pedagogies, teachers and students is of relevance to this paper. It is, hence, important to understand how discourses work through power relations.

Foucault argued against juridical notions of power as a possession operating within centralised hierarchies. Rather he sought to understand how malleable, capillary like relations of power operated (1998). He argued that power relations circulate through institutions such as HPE, without actually being located within them. They are embedded in social networks and function on multiple levels to shape capacities and potential actions (Foucault, 1982).

Overtime, Foucault’s (2007) genealogical investigations extended to exploring power/knowledge relationships of discipline and bio-power. Disciplinary power relations seek to mobilise the acquisition by individuals of particular attitudes, habits, social norms and bodies (Foucault, 2015). Bio-power operates to regulate bodies and practices of individuals as well the population or ‘biological corpus’ (Foucault, 2004). While disciplinary and bio-power relations operate on different levels, the ‘norm’ can be ‘applied to both a body one wishes to discipline and the population one wishes to regularize’ (Foucault, 2004, p. 253). Power relations are, hence, about the conduct and potentiality of individuals and the population more broadly (Foucault, 1982).

Foucault (1982) understood technologies for directing conduct and managing potentiality as ‘government’. More specifically he described ‘government’ as ‘the way in which the conduct of individuals or groups might be directed: the government of children, of souls, of communities, of families, of the sick’ (1982, p. 221). This work has been significant to HPE research undertakings, which have variously investigated governing selves, students, bodies, health and citizenship (see Leahy, 2014; Lupton, 1999; Osterlind & Wright, 2014; Wrench, 2019).

Previous research has explored the working of disciplinary and bio-power relations in the media and consequences for directing conduct in relation to ‘white’ norms for athletes (see Wrench & Garrett, 2017; 2018). There has, though, been limited research into ‘conditions of possibility’ that have contributed to governing the conduct of students in relation to a ‘white’ Eurocentric norm for health, physical activity and bodies. With this in mind, this paper explores ways and effects that have materialised and/or mutated through discourses of settler colonialism, neo-liberal colonialism and associated cultural factors. Materials such as reports, curriculum documents, newspaper and research articles, were selected for analysis based upon their potential to illuminate discourses, and power relations implicated in framing HPE and earlier iterations. I acknowledge that this was not a neutral undertaking and the specific orientation I offer is informed by discursive resources and ideals I have access to around education as a ‘public good’.

Publicness, education and HPE

As established above, education as a ‘public good’ along with strengthening students and their communities are distinct themes embedded in contemporary policy documents. Taken together these themes suggest notions of education being for the public, of the public and accountable to the public (Biesta et al., 2022).

A specific relationship between education and the population, its public and communities is not new. Foucault (2007), for instance, notes that the ‘public’ … is the population seen under the aspect of its opinions, ways of doing things, forms of behaviour, customs, fears, prejudices and requirements (p. 75). Moreover, the ‘public’ represents those aspects of the ‘population’ that ‘one gets a hold on’ through education, amongst other governmental apparatuses (Foucault, 2007).

Of relevance to this paper is the emergence of pedagogical concerns about the government or conduct of children in relation to health, potential productivity and contribution to communities. As Foucault states, ‘[t]he education of children was the fundamental utopia, crystal and prism through which problems of conduction were perceived (2007, p. 231). It follows that education has long been tied to broader political issues of population and citizenship (Biesta, 2012).

In the remaining sections of the paper, I explore practices for conducting the conduct of children through HPE and earlier iterations (Physical Training [PT] Physical Education [PE]) as these intersect with the political projects of setter-colonialism and more recently neo-liberalised colonial impulses. I first attend to HPE for the public and of the public. The remaining sections of the paper engage with possibilities for reclaiming the publicness of HPE in the struggle for just educational outcomes for Indigenous students.

HPE for the public

Instruction in relation to ‘what to think’, ‘how to act’ and ‘how to be’ is a key pedagogical purpose of education for the public (Biesta, 2012, 2014). Within the Australian context utilitarian discourses have long established ‘truth’ claims that HPE has value in educating for the public. These ‘truths’ reflect convictions that have survived, albeit with differing governmental aspirations, since the emergence of PT as a feature of mass schooling during the nineteenth century (Kirk, 1993). Of consequence are historically contingent responses to societal concerns around population health and active, productive citizenship (Wrench, 2019).

The nineteenth century, for instance, represents a time when the ‘unruly’ colonial population was constructed as a problem that could be addressed through mass schooling (Hunter, 1996). PT as a feature of mass schooling was charged with educating for advancing hygiene and health as well as physical, moral and intellectual capacities (Hyams et al., 1988; Kirk, 2000; Newman, 1933). By way of example, in 1907 Alfred Williams (Director of Education) described a key role of schooling was to ‘care for the health and physical development of its charge’ (cited in Hyams et al., 1988, p. 98) so as to ensure the physically fitness of the future workforce.

Nineteenth century ‘nationalism’ provided ‘conditions of possibility’ in settler-colonial Australia for deploying militaristic pedagogical practices for PT. These disciplinary technologies aimed to educate for obedience, control, hygiene, as well as healthy, productive citizenship (Kirk, 1993, 1998). Within the context of a geographically remote colonial state this was also in terms of inculcating shared ‘status, mores, and customs’ (Foucault, 2004, p. 134) and, hence, British notions of class, race and gender. These governmental aspirations were framed by a ‘white’ male European norm transmitted through the implementation of British schooling practices and syllabi (Wrench, 2019).

There was, hence, no place in settler-colonial schooling, including PT, for incorporating interrelated ways of knowing, being and doing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Drawing on Martin and Mirraboopa (2003) ways of knowing compromise explanations of social, political, historical, spatial contexts and their interrelationships. These knowledge and processes for acquiring them inform respectful, reciprocal and rightful ways of being in relation to self, others and Country.⁵ Ways of doing emerge from the synthesis of ways of knowing and being to incorporate languages, ceremonies, artefacts, land management, individual and collective identities, and roles (Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003). Ways of knowing, being and doing that had been central to highly effective systems of education deployed across tens of thousands of years by Indigenous peoples and their communities were initially ignored and eventually annihilated through settler-colonial schooling (Bishop et al., 2021).

Bio-power–which in addressing significant population concerns seeks to regulate for the benefit of the population as a whole (Foucault, 2004)–played a significant role in educating for conformity to a ‘white’ European norm. Initially, this was in relation to ensuring survival of the supposedly superior European settlers, through either eliminating or assimilating the allegedly inferior Indigenous peoples (Foucault, 2004). Further to this, discourses of biology and evolutionism underpinned the racism inherent in the settler-colonial project (Foucault, 2004) that included Australian schooling. These discourses established ‘truths’ that constructed ‘civilised’ bodies, as controlled, rational and cultured. Conversely, Indigenous peoples were understood to be closer to nature than the cultured ‘white’ middle-class norm and, hence, constructed as ‘primitive’ and uneducable (Lupton, 1995).

To illustrate the ‘us/them’ dichotomy, which continues to haunt the nation (Wrench & Garrett, 2017), I draw on complaints made in 1932 about Aboriginal children attending school with ‘white’ students.

The town clerk … expresses fears that infectious diseases might be communicated to white children by the half-castes, who he believes have a mental capacity at least three years below that of white children … (Rintoul, 2020)

Rintoul (2020) explains that schooling ‘white’ students with Aboriginal children gave rise to concerns about morality and supposed impossibility of children one generation on from ‘stone age people’ fitting into European or ‘white’ civilisation.

When such discursive ‘truths’ become common place, it is difficult to think outside of them. As a consequence, schooling was purposed for assimilation and forgetting ‘the ways of the Old people’ (Mattingly & Hampton, 1988, p. 4). Games had, for instance, been used to develop ways of knowing, being and doing associated with economic, political, social and cultural aspects of traditional ways of life (Edwards, 2009; Salter, 1967). However, through the assimilation imperative, Indigenous students were to forget these ways of knowing, being and doing, while settler-colonialist children had no need for them (Wrench, 2019, 2023).

Through an interplay of settler-colonial schooling discourses, disciplinary and bio-power relations students were simultaneously disciplined and regulated in relation to the normativity of’ ‘whiteness’. A lasting consequence has been the erasure of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ontologies and epistemologies around the interrelationship of Country, health, wellbeing and physical activity. This is exemplified by the marginalisation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait movement cultures and health practices within Australian HPE curriculum (Whatman et al., 2017).

Discourses of biological determinism and racism have also been significant in supporting globalised ‘truth’ claims that brown/black-skinned people are naturally sporty or athletic (Fitzpatrick, 2009). Such discourses work through disciplinary and bio-power relations to essentialise ‘truth’ claims that all Indigenous students share common learning styles, are naturally suited to the physicality of HPE and concomitantly academically weak (Hokowhitu, 2008). Of consequence are present day HPE curricular and pedagogical practices that lack rigour and contribute to educational alienation, underachievement and inequality experienced by Indigenous students (Whatman & Singh, 2015; Wrench & Garrett, 2021). Moreover, such deficit discourses work to individualise responsibility for educational underachievement, whilst curricula and pedagogical practices of HPE that (re)produce discrimination and disadvantage are not taken into account (Whatman & Singh, 2015).

‘Conditions of possibility’ that privilege ‘white’ ways of knowing, doing and being exemplify Biesta’s (2014) assertion that education for the public tends to be orientated towards erasure of plurality and difference. This situation is seemingly at odds with the aims and commitments outlined in the Mparntwe Declaration to provide quality education that supports Aboriginal and Torress Strait Islander students to reach their potential. It also reflects concerns that policies for inclusion are adopted in superficial ways that fail to address expectations of governments and the public more broadly (Bishop et al. 2021).

HPE of the public

Biesta (2012; 2014) argues that education of the public incorporates agendas relating to societal, institutional and government needs, and/or concerns. Education of the public centres on learning, and consciousness raising about what is deemed to be ‘at stake’. Students are to acquire the ‘right, correct or true understanding’ (Biesta, 2012, p. 692) about issues, problematics or concerns and act accordingly. In relation to PE/HPE learning has been tied to the dissemination of specific forms of knowledge and skills deemed necessary for students to take health, fitness and motor skill enhancing action perceived to benefit themselves, communities and the nation more broadly (Wrench, 2019).

Sport and game play have, for instance, long featured as a context of learning in relation to developing a sense of national belonging as well as ensuring sporting success and community participation (Crawford, 2009). The assertion being that team games promote the acquisition and development of character traits required for leadership, regulating conduct, obedience, cooperation and contributing to national productivity and security (Coakley et al., 2009). Within the context of settler-colonialism learning from gameplay was premised on a ‘white’ Eurocentric norm overlaid with unique Australian perspectives associated with rugged, outback manliness (Crotty, 2000; Kirk, 1998). Sport has, consequently, been constructed as a valued cultural institution that is central to notions of Australia as an egalitarian nation (McDonald, 2016).

This grand narrative has reinforced ‘truth’ claims that learning from participation in sport, including as taught in HPE, is inherently valuable. Sport-related media and more recently social media have also been influential in framing discourses of sport that (re)present, (re)enforce and fortify hegemonic understandings of gender, race and national identity in Australia (Falcous & Anderson, 2011; Faquharson & Marjoribanks, 2006; Tatz & Tatz, 1996). This is exemplified by the celebration of particular bodies over others, privileging male team sports and stereotypically describing Indigenous athletes as innately talented but requiring close guidance (Coram, 2007).

Whilst some Aboriginal and Torress Strait Islander people have experienced long and stellar sporting careers, ongoing institutional and societal racism as well as censure have too often and repeatedly framed experiences (Coyle & Judd, 2021; Evans et al., 2015; Osmond, 2019; Wrench & Garrett, 2017). Sustained repetition, albeit in varied materialisations, gives form to the deeply sedimented haunting of organised sport by the racism of settler-colonial Australia.

Further concerns arise when violences that operate through the structures and practices of organised sport are rendered invisible in HPE (Flintoff & Dowling, 2019; Wrench & Garrett, 2017). This is evinced by uncritical use of sport-based initiatives for Indigenous students in HPE and community programs. Argument is made that participation in sport is a ‘natural fit’, and means for building physical, social and mental health as well as connections to community (Crawford, 2009). Foundational is the presumption that sport can be the vehicle for addressing educational and health gaps experienced by Indigenous young people (Sheppard, 2023). However, closer investigation indicates mixed success rates for these programs, which are not necessarily panaceas to constructed problematics (Sheppard, 2023; Rossi, 2015). Moreover, these programs tend to be premised on deficit understandings that fail to utilise or develop the cultural resources of Indigenous participants (Coppola & McHugh, 2018; Sheppard et al., 2021). Sheppard (2023) explains that sporting programs delivered to ‘at risk’ young Indigenous people impose ‘European normative standards that exploit our youngsters’ passion for sport that [do] not recognise Indigenous ways of doing and seeing things’ (p. 5).

Sport, as a valued Australian cultural institution, has also been considered integral to preventing risks to the health status of individuals and nation more broadly (Crawford, 2009). The following excerpt from The Future of Sport in Australia report, gives an indication of the manifestation of this significance.

The Australian Government and the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) have long affirmed the importance of … sports participation. More recently, the importance of sport’s contribution to the national health agenda and social inclusion has been emphasised. (Crawford, 2009, p. 1)

In contemporary times the logic of neo-liberalism, as the dominant governmental rationality, foregrounds the construction of risks and problematics around, for instance education and health (Rose, 1999). Against this backdrop, Lupton (1999) notes that since the 1980s recognition of good health as a learning outcome of PE/HPE has gained purchase. A direct consequence is the responsibilisation of school-based HPE for teaching students how to protect themselves from health risks associated with inactivity (Osterlind & Wright, 2014). It is, hence, unsurprising that public health discourses have framed teaching and learning issues for schooling (Warin, 2020). This is exemplified in the following excerpt from the Rational of the Australian Curriculum: HPE.

Health and Physical Education enables students to develop skills, understanding and willingness to positively influence the health and wellbeing of themselves and their communities. In an increasingly complex, sedentary and rapidly changing world, it is critical for every young Australian to flourish as a healthy, safe, active and informed citizen. It is essential that young people develop their ability to respond to new health issues and evolving physical activity options. (ACARA, 2023)

It is hard to speak against public health discourses embedded in the AC: HPE Rationale. However, these discourses simultaneously individualise and regulate students in relation to rational ‘white’ middle-class norms for health and physical activity (Alfrey & Welch, 2022). Concurrently there is little, if any, consideration of the cultural, community and material factors that influence health-related behaviours of Indigenous students along with others living with disadvantage (Newman et al., 2015; Petherick & Norman, 2020). Meanwhile culturally informed health knowledge, identities and practices of Indigenous and cultural minority students are rendered invisible (Petherick & Norman, 2020). HPE curricula and pedagogical practices that ignore culture bear a potential to perpetuate disadvantage and racism that impacts health, sense of self and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students (Moodie et al., 2019; Murrup-Stewart et al., 2021).

Neo-liberal rationalities and technologies have shaped ‘conditions of possibility’ for HPE curriculum and pedagogical practices in ways that are neither neutral or enabling of just and equitable outcomes for Indigenous students. This represents a contemporary form of colonialism and, as argued by Venn (2006), new possibilities for the subjugation of knowledge and practices of colonised peoples such as Indigenous Australians. Notions of HPE as a public good, democratically accountable and beneficial for all students are, hence, rendered problematic. In response, I turn next to explore broader notions of the ‘publicness’ of education as means for moving towards HPE curriculum and pedagogies that respect and enable ‘plurality in human togetherness’ (Biesta, 2014, p. 23).

‘Publicness’ of HPE

In response to neo-liberalised ‘conditions of possibility’ Biesta et al. (2022) argue for the retrieval of education as a public rather than private good or commodity. Reid (2019), similarly argues for socially and ethically just public education that enables all, including Indigenous children to flourish. Accordingly, there is a need for education that is accountable to all sections of the public, as well as pedagogical practices that work at the intersection of education and politics (Biesta, 2014).

If the field of HPE is to act on these appeals, there is an urgent need for curriculum and pedagogical practices that counter aspirations for guiding student conduct in relation to individualised rational, ‘white’ middle class norms for health, wellbeing, bodies and physical activity. Decolonising practices capable of disrupting myths that subordinate ‘othered’ bodies, knowledge, practices and perspectives represent a way of moving forward on these appeals.

As reported elsewhere (see Wrench, 2023; Wrench et al., 2022 ) Culturally Responsive Pedagogies (CRP), represent means for taking up the decolonising challenge. Advocates of CRP seek to draw on the cultural resources of students in ways that promote participation, engagement and learning whilst furthering cultural capabilities and identities. Rigney et al. (2020), argue that acquiring knowledge and identity work alone are insufficient. They make a case adopting an activist orientation and, hence, engaging in socio-political consciousness raising and translating learning into action. From their research they offer up the following suggestions for activist teaching:

• provide opportunities for … students to be successful at school against historical failure

• establish strong democratic relationships in … . classrooms and … co-construct learning with … students

• use student research to educate a wider community about the issues being studied

• connect … learning with existing social movement struggle around social problems that matter to the communities the school serves. (Rigney et al., 2020)

Rather than scripted practices or reified methods, these suggestions have relevance as guiding principles for decolonising HPE. Possibilities include countering discursive ‘truths’ that homogenise Indigenous students in relation to ‘one size fits all’ solutions, common learning styles, natural sportiness and concomitant academic failure. Further possibilities include reimaging the practices of HPE beyond traditional transmission pedagogies for cognition and motor skills acquisition to include critical inquiry, negotiation, and co-construction of knowledge about health, wellbeing, and physical activity.

Discourses of CRP make it possible to envisage a shift in purposes of HPE beyond individualising neo-liberalised ideals. Such a shift incorporates possibilities for engaging with health and physical activity issues, such as racism in sport and health practices, which are meaningful, relevant, and important to students. Pivotal, is recognising and valuing holistic Indigenous health/wellbeing practices and knowledge and supporting development of a positive sense of cultural belonging, including for Indigenous students living in urban settings and/or removed from Country (Murrup-Stewart et al., 2021).

Rich and Sandlin (2017) similarly contend that in order for physical activity cultures to nurture ‘plurality in human togetherness’ they require activist-orientated pedagogical practices. Whilst not specifically aligned to CRP they argue for pedagogical practices that incorporate an assemblage of affect, embodiment, and relationality. Their premise being that working this way disrupts normative disciplinary and bio-power relations operating through pedagogies of transmission and control. In contrast they advocate practices that facilitate exploration and negotiation of embodied and affective relationality (Rich & Sandlin, 2017). As with CRP approaches, this requires a (re)imagining HPE lessons as public spaces where bodies move relationally to construct affective and embodied ways of knowing, doing and being.

The Yulunga games resource, has, for instance, been used as means for disruption in delivering culturally mediated curriculum and pedagogical practices (see Dinan Thomson et al., 2014; Pill et al., 2022; Wrench & Garrett, 2021, 2022). Significant factors include reshaping HPE lesson spaces, conditions for engagement and participation, making meaningful connecting to students’ life-worlds and building health outcomes. Beyond these findings, discourses of activist-oriented CRP foreground ‘affective’ responses of differing relational and embodied intensities that extend far beyond framing ability in terms of strength speed and motor control (Wrench, 2023; Wrench & Garrett, 2021, 2022).

Research indicates that disruption can also result in the (re)positioning of HPE educators as all-knowing experts (Wrench & Garrett, 2021). This shift is exemplified by teachers facilitating student participation, learning and engagement within the cultural landscape of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander games. Heaton (2019) together with Bishop et al. (2021) argue that teachers operating from a position of ‘not knowing’ should not be viewed as a handicap. Rather, as an opportunity for consultation and collaboration with Aboriginal and Torres Strait educators, community members and/or researchers.

McGuire-Adams (2020) similarly argues that in order to counter deficit colonial discourses it is necessary to engage with Indigenous health concepts and physical activity practices. Possibilities include engaging in meaningful ways with holistic conceptualisations of health that embrace the interconnectivity of Country, culture, spirituality, ancestry, family and community (Murrup-Stewart et al., 2021). This is not simply learning ‘about’ tokenistic representations of Indigeneity (Moodie et al., 2019). Taking embodiment, affect and relationality seriously enables possibilities for HPE to provide all students with opportunities to show (doing) respectful and rightful ways (being) what they know (knowing) (Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003).

Moreover, if HPE is to a site for nurturing plurality in human togetherness, there is a pressing need for Australian educators to consult and collaborate with Aboriginal and Torress Strait Island peoples, as well as engage seriously with culturally significant ontologies and epistemologies. As an educator who has had the privilege of working closely with an Indigenous colleague, students and school-based support staff, I acknowledge these requirements are not necessarily straight forward, guaranteed, or easy to meet. Localised, and contextual responses and ongoing, albeit at times difficult conversations within non-judgemental and supportive groups such as AARE HPE SIG and 2021 International Association for Physical Education in Higher Education (AIESEP) are important.

Concluding thoughts

In this paper I have engaged with the historicity of the Eurocentric ‘white’ framing of contemporary HPE. A Foucauldian genealogical approach was used to raise consciousness about the constitutive presence of Australia’s settler-colonial past within HPE and the concomitant marginalisation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, being and doing. Discourses of the ‘publicness of education’ provided a framing for problematising how teaching and learning in HPE are enabled by the logics of settler-colonialism and more recent forms of neo-liberalised colonial schooling.

Whilst explorations and narratives of the past and their haunting of our present can be uncomfortable, they are important for decolonial consciousness raising around the impact of ‘white’ Eurocentric curriculum and pedagogical practices of HPE. However, as argued in this paper (re)shaping present and future HPE offerings requires more than consciousness raising. In response, I call for a turn to activist education that supports multiple and/or alternative ways of being, doing and knowing (Biesta, 2014).

Activist oriented approaches considered in this paper include CRP, assemblages of affect, embodiment and relationality as well as consultation and collaboration with Indigenous peoples. Collectively they are premised on the interrelationship of affective, embodied, cognitive and spiritual dimensions of human togetherness. Whilst these examples are not presented as reified or definitive solutions, they encourage inclusive, equitable and decolonial ways of ‘ways of being, doing, and knowing’. As such, they represent possibilities for HPE educators to adopt/adapt in addressing the pressing problematic of the inadequacy of HPE to counteract the ongoing educational and health disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torress Strait Islander students. Questioning ‘why’ ‘how’ and ‘what’ is taught in HPE is critical for reframing ‘thinking and feeling’ required for pedagogical and curricular practices that can enhance educational justice for Indigenous students. This is a call to refuse to guide the conduct of students in ways that perpetuate educational discrimination, disadvantage and inequality. I conclude in asking, ‘if not now, who by and when will this call be acted on’?

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Alison Wrench

Dr. Alison Wrench is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education studies at the University of South Australia. Alison’s research program centres on socially-critical and culturally responsive pedagogies in Health and Physical Education, inclusion and just schooling outcomes. Her research interests extend to in-service and pre-service teacher practitioner inquiry and student led inquiry into localised health and physical activity issues ‘that matter’.

Notes

1 I use the terms ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’ to describe First Nations Indigenous peoples of Australia whilst acknowledging a diversity of acceptance of this term. I also use pluralised reference terms such as 'First Peoples' or ‘First Nations’ to respectfully encompass the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and identities. Where Aboriginal and Indigenous are used, I recognise the colonial legacy these terms sustain.

2 Promoting reconciliation establishes the need for all teachers to reflect on their role in supporting reconciliation and improving the educational experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students

3 Since 1991 in Australia, Physical Education (PE) has been incorporated in the Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum. Earlier manifestations included Physical Training (PT) and Physical Education (PE). I use HPE primarily but on occasion use HPE/PE

4 Closing the Gap developed collaboratively by peak Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and Australian Governments sets priority targets and reforms for improving life outcomes experienced by Indigenous Australians.

5 Country comprises an interdependent relationship between individuals and their ancestral lands and seas that is sustained by cultural knowledge, histories, and language