Doune Macdonald

Teacher voice and ownership of curriculum change

We comment critically on the notion that teachers can experience ownership of curriculum change. The evidence base for this commentary is our work on two curriculum development projects in health and physical education between 1993 and 1998. Applying a theoretical framework adapted from Bernsteins writing on the social construction of pedagogic discourse, we contend that the possibilities for teacher ownership of curriculum change are circumscribed by the anchoring of their authority to speak on curriculum matters in the local context of implementation. We argue that this anchoring of teacher voice provides a key to understanding the perennial problem of the transformation of innovative ideas from conception to implementation. We also provide some insights into the extent to which genuine participation by teachers in education reform might be possible, and we conclude with a discussion of the possibilities that exist for partnerships in reforming health and physical education.

Physical activity and young people: beyond participation.

The quantitative literature on physical activity participation patterns leaves many questions about the place and significance of physical activity in the lives of young people unanswered. This paper begins to address this absence by attempting to understand physical activity from the point of view of young people and in relation to other aspects of their lives. It discusses interviews with 28 female and 34 male students from three Australian high schools chosen because they provided the opportunity to include students from different geographical, social and cultural locations. Students were asked to reflect upon their past and current engagement in physical activity, and the impact of factors such as their location, family, and school in their access and interest. Different spaces and places proved important in the nature of the physical activity available, its significance to young people and the kinds of identities which could be constructed.

It's All Very Well, in Theory: Theoretical Perspectives and Their Applications in Contemporary Pedagogical Research.

Current debates about educational theory are concerned with the relationship between knowledge and power and thereby issues such as who possesses a “truth” and how have they arrived at it, what questions are important to ask, and how should they best be answered. As such, these debates revolve around questions of preferred, appropriate, and useful theoretical perspectives. This paper overviews the key theoretical perspectives that are currently used in physical education pedagogy research and considers how these inform the questions we ask and shapes the conduct of research. It also addresses what is contested with respect to these perspectives. The paper concludes with some “cautions” about allegiances to and use of theories in line with concerns for the applicability of educational research to pressing social issues.

Curriculum Change and the Post-Modern World: Is the School Curriculum-Reform Movement an Anachronism?.

When visiting friends and watching the activity in their chookhouse, I was reminded of the chaos currently occurring in the light of a proposed curriculum change in Australian schools (Lingard et al. 2000). With no disrespect to educators or teachers in the schools, or to the curriculum theorists who informed the innovation, it seemed that this particular curriculum innovation was being lobbed onto schools, whereupon the principal, that is the rooster, and teachers, that is the chickens, went into a flurry of activity. However, like the modernist schooling system in which entrenched knowledge and practices often override the innovative ideal (Eisner 2000), the chookhouse quickly returned to its normal routine. Despite the extensive knowledge and experience that curricularists seemingly have with respect to implementing meaningful curriculum change, the goals and processes of change are narrowly proscribed by existing structures, resources and traditions, with the result that schools always fall short of meeting the needs of young people and their communities. Furthermore, in response to the ‘crisis’ in schooling and curriculum reform, recent debates surrounding curriculum studies, theorizing and reform have been highly critical, using such descriptors as ‘disarray’, ‘blind’, ‘floundering’, ‘failure’ and ‘schism’ (Reid 1998, Hlebowitsh 1999, McGinn 1999, Westbury 1999). Some (e.g. Wraga 1999) assert that curriculum is fraught with oppositional discourses, the fragmentation of interests and the separation of concerns into theory and practice. A ‘solution’ for the latter is for curriculum work to be grounded in deliberative knowing and practical action (Hlebowitsh 1999, Henderson 2000). Others see the future as somewhat exciting, given the complex j. curriculum studies, 2003, vol. 35, no. 2, 139–149

Like a Fish in Water: Physical Education Policy and Practice in the Era of Neoliberal Globalization

Globally, Physical Education (PE) carries the stamp of neoliberalism and as a field we are keen, it seems, to accrue more of the vestiges of this ideology. While neoliberal positions and practices are not necessarily harmful to the long-term interests of the field or the students we teach, indeed it may be strategic to take them up, the field needs to realize and reflect upon the pervasiveness of neoliberalism. Two trends in PE will be presented: (a) high stakes testing and (b) outsourcing PE to private providers, making the case that each is a response to neoliberalism and potentially the deprofessionalization of PE. Yet each trend or set of practices is not only embraced by many in the PE profession but each is often espoused by the profession as a way of buying into the dominant policy agendas (e.g., accountability, reducing health costs, supporting choice) and gaining the ensuing recognition as a legitimate school practice.

‘Are they just checking our obesity or what?’ The healthism discourse and rural young women

This paper makes use of critical discourse analysis and Bourdieus theoretical framework to explore rural young womens meanings of health and fitness and how the healthism discourse is perpetuated through their experiences in school physical education (PE). The young womens own meanings are explored alongside interview data from their school PE head of department (HoD). The healthism discourse was evident in the way that the young women spoke of physical activity, health, fitness and their bodies. They viewed health and fitness as being important to control body shape and adhered to a stereotypical feminine appearance as ideal. The data also illustrate how a school health and physical education (HPE) HoDs own engagements with the healthism discourse and the schools HPE curriculum shaped the young womens understandings of health and fitness and their bodies. Data presented in this paper are drawn from an Australian longitudinal, qualitative project involving interview and visual collection methods. The longitudinal nature of the data adds to existing research by demonstrating the durability of the healthism discourse as it is perpetuated through PE even up to two years post-school. Understanding how the healthism discourse is reproduced through social structures such as the school, and how it perpetuates traditional meanings and approaches to physical activity has important implications for the generation of physical activity and health promotion initiatives.

Private lives, public lives: surveillance, identity and self in the work of beginning physical education teachers

This paper contributes to knowledge of teacher socialization, and in particular, current understandings of sources of teacher dissatisfaction. It focuses on the experiences of beginning physical education teachers working in non‐metropolitan schools. While lining and working in small conservative communities, these teachers were subject to a variety of pressures relating to their isolation, beginning professional status, and personal lifestyle choices. These pressures to conform are explored using Foucaults [FOUCAULT, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish (New York, Pantheon] account of the processes of regulation and surveillance, and by drawing on data which illustrates how teachers’ work practices, appearance and lifestyles were being watched by the school and outside community.

The Social Construction of the Physical Activity Field at the School/University Interface

While some bodies of literature address the construction of school physical education and others the construction of university study of physical activity (e.g. physical education, human movement studies), little attention has been paid to the interface between these sites.This is somewhat surprising given the significant growth and popularity of the physical activity field in universities and that together they form a cyclical relationship in that the university disciplinary knowledge is central to physical education teacher education.This paper introduces aspects of the production, reproduction, adaptation, and modification of educational discourse as students move from school physical education into human movement studies. In doing so, it will highlight dominant dimensions of the regulative discourse, the strengths and weaknesses in the classification and framing of knowledge within school and tertiary programmes, and introduce a relatively unique line of research into the construction of educational discourse in school subjects.

‘I could do with a pair of wings’: perspectives on physical activity, bodies and health from young Australian children

There is little research that reports childrens perspectives on physical activity, bodies and health. This paper, drawn from a larger multi-method study on physical activity in the lives of seven- and eight-year-old Australian children, attempts to ‘give a voice’ to 13 childrens views. Interviews focused on childrens activity preferences and related decision making and motivations pertaining to these activities, as well as how they thought about the relationships between physical activity, health and their bodies. Data suggest some tensions surrounding the importance of fun for children alongside their awareness of ‘healthist’ discourses that require self-monitoring and improvement.

The social construction of pedagogic discourse in physical education teacher education in Australia

Once the exclusive domain of teacher education, physical education in Australian tertiary institutions has during the last twenty years evolved into a series of discipline‐based fields concerned with human movement studies, leisure studies and sport science that have begun to feed new vocational opportunities in the sport, exercise and leisure industries. Concomitant with these changes in the social organization of knowledge in tertiary physical education has been a realignment of school physical education programmes, particularly in the senior school curriculum. Inevitably, the once sole focus of physical education in tertiary institutions on teacher education is now being forced to reinvent itself in light of these dynamic changes in the social organization of school and university knowledge. Following the work of Bernstein, Goodson and others, this article analyses current policy and practice in physical education teacher education and identifies several future scenarios. The first part of the article provides an historical overview of the emergence of new forms of tertiary knowledge in physical education from the mid‐1970s until the present. The second part provides a similar overview of developments in school physical education with a focus on senior school and matriculation physical education during the same period. The third part analyses the current state of affairs in the social organization of knowledge for physical education teacher education. In the fourth part, a series of questions is raised concerning relationships between knowledge in physical education teacher education, school physical education and university forms of the field through the presentation of several future scenarios. The article concludes with several proposals for policy development concerned with physical education teacher education programmes.