TY - JOUR
T1 - Despite good intentions
T2 - the elusiveness of social justice in health and physical education curricula across different contexts
AU - Gerdin, Göran
AU - Lundin, Katarina
AU - Philpot, Rod
AU - Berg, Ellen
AU - Mooney, Amanda
AU - Kitching, Ansie
AU - Alfrey, Laura
AU - Schenker, Katarina
AU - Linnér, Susanne
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - This paper draws on critical discourse analysis to examine how health and physical education (HPE) curricula from Sweden, Norway, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand may influence possibilities for the enactment of social justice in schools. The findings highlight the presence of social justice intentions across the five curricula as related to embodied movement experiences, social cohesion, and activism. That said, the findings simultaneously suggest that the language used to orient teaching towards social justice objectives is often elusive. In this paper, we contend that despite the presence of social justice intentions in these five HPE curricula, the articulation and function of the language within the curriculum documents do not necessarily support the enactment of this in practice. To conclude, we therefore suggest that more work is needed to ensure that curricula and other supporting artefacts and resources can better support both teachers’ practice and students’ learning in raising awareness of, and addressing, social justice outcomes in HPE.
AB - This paper draws on critical discourse analysis to examine how health and physical education (HPE) curricula from Sweden, Norway, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand may influence possibilities for the enactment of social justice in schools. The findings highlight the presence of social justice intentions across the five curricula as related to embodied movement experiences, social cohesion, and activism. That said, the findings simultaneously suggest that the language used to orient teaching towards social justice objectives is often elusive. In this paper, we contend that despite the presence of social justice intentions in these five HPE curricula, the articulation and function of the language within the curriculum documents do not necessarily support the enactment of this in practice. To conclude, we therefore suggest that more work is needed to ensure that curricula and other supporting artefacts and resources can better support both teachers’ practice and students’ learning in raising awareness of, and addressing, social justice outcomes in HPE.
KW - curriculum
KW - discourse
KW - health
KW - language
KW - Physical education
KW - social justice
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85192438855&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1356336X241249820
DO - 10.1177/1356336X241249820
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85192438855
SN - 1356-336X
JO - European Physical Education Review
JF - European Physical Education Review
ER -