Louise McCuaig

Women's recreational surfing: a patronising experience

Research analysing the operation of power within sport and physical activity has exposed the marginalisation and exclusion of womens sport in explicit and institutionalised ways. However, for women in recreational and alternative physical activities like surfing, sporting experiences lie outside institutionalised structures, thus requiring alternative surfing of conceptualising the processes of exclusionary power. In this paper, we focus on the voices of women recreational surfers to explore the changes which may or may not be occurring at smaller, more localised levels of womens engagement with surfing culture. An ethnographic methodology was employed to ask women how and why they engage in surfing and what it means for them, rather than asking questions based on existing assumptions. In presenting the data we draw upon the double meaning afforded by the term ‘to patronise’ as a means of framing the complex ways that women continue to be differentiated in surfing culture, and the ways they respond to this. In the final section, we employ a Foucauldian analytic lens to explore the subtle normalising practices in which women are incited to recognise and undertake the practices of the valued masculine ideal of the ‘good surfer’ through caring acts and advice offered by male surfers. This post-structuralist perspective offers space to think outside of simple resistance and reproduction, instead considering a complex space where women and men negotiate power in a range of ways from contextual, subjective positions. In conclusion, we argue that women recreational surfers are enacting alternative ways of operating within the power relations that circulate in the waves, creating ever-changing spaces for new ways of doing and knowing surfing to emerge.

A salutogenic, strengths-based approach as a theory to guide HPE curriculum change

The draft Australian Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2012c) takes a strengths-based approach that emphasizes questions such as ‘What keeps me healthy and active?’ rather than ‘What risks, diseases and behaviours should I learn to avoid?’. This paper explores a salutogenic approach to the strengths-based orientation that has been identified as one of the five key propositions in the new Australian HPE curriculum. A salutogenic approach to a health literacy unit provides some initial insight into the possibilities and challenges posed by the implementation of a strengths-based orientation to HPE. Questions of relative emphases and potential weaknesses are subsequently raised as means of identifying the influence of curriculum interpretation, design and pedagogical practice in securing the implementation of a strengths-based oriented Australian HPE.

HPE and the moral governance of p/leisurable bodies

Contemporary notions of good citizenship and proper living have become intimately related to the pursuit of good health. Consequently, modern states have devised programmes of education and training that endeavour to provide apprentice citizens with the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to enhance their own and others health and wellbeing. These strategies, deployed through institutions such as schools, contribute to the moral regulation of subjects, focusing as they do upon the moral and ethical practices of the self. Contemporary Health and Physical Education (HPE) claims to have an explicit and significant role to play in this endeavour. HPE research suggests the profession values its moral education role, believing the field has something unique to offer in this regard as a result of its special teaching and learning environments, subject matter and caring teacher–student relationships. Nonetheless, the profession has been criticised for failing to provide adequate theoretical and empirical support regarding the role of HPE as a moral enterprise. This paper draws upon a Foucauldian genealogical analysis of twentieth century programmes of Queensland HPE to provide an alternative response to this challenge. In this paper we contend that HPEs capacity to operate as a mechanism of social and moral training relies not on any one special dimension, but through the orchestrated deployment of its subject matter, learning environments and caring teachers, as the definitive governmental technologies of the HPE apparatus.This paper first traces HPEs lines of visibility and enunciation, establishing its subject matter and learning environments as the foundational coordinates of the HPE apparatus. Secondly, we explore the constitution of power/knowledge relationships within HPE and the manner in which truth games have emerged and are deployed within the HPE apparatus. Through a mapping of HPEs lines of subjectivity we suggest that HPE teachers have been incited to constitute themselves as agents of pastoral power and have joined a privileged group of pedagogues who have been allocated the responsibility for training subjects in particular arts of living. In light of this argument, we focus upon the contemporary significance of these teachers’ capacity to create caring relationships with their students. In conclusion, we raise some implications for the profession in light of this Foucauldian perspective and provide a possible explanation underpinning the professions claims concerning the moral education of young people.

Sitting on the fishbowl rim with Foucault: a reflexive account of HPE teachers’ caring

This article draws on Bourdieus analogy of a fish in water, to provide a four-stage self-reflexive account of one Health and Physical Education (HPE) teachers acquisition of a Foucaldian analytic lens, one with which to explore the moral and governing practices of HPE. Drawing on this research journey, the author seeks to demonstrate her growing capacity to ‘feel the weight of her water’ and to subsequently critique the resilience of care within Australian HPE contexts and the role these care discourses play in the constitution of healthy, active citizens. This narrative is used to illustrate the complex, contingent trajectory of research endeavours and the value of reflexive strategies for those undertaking the journey from teacher to researcher.

Towards an understanding of fidelity within the context of school-based health education

Schools and schooling have long provided a tempting site for the delivery of public health strategies that address and promote young people’s current and future health. However, an emerging concern regarding the mobilisation of public health interventions within school settings has been the failure of school teachers to deliver such programs with fidelity. For educators, these notions of fidelity stand in stark contrast to the tenets of student-centred teaching. In seeking to explore these tensions further, this paper draws upon a collaborative health education project conducted with schools and teachers from Queensland, Australia. Findings from this project reveal the complexity associated with curriculum implementation in school settings, where diverse resources including timetable allocations and teacher expertise mitigate the achievement of program fidelity. In our efforts to explain the findings emerging from this project, we have drawn on the conceptual reference points of Basil Bernstein’s theory of the pedagogic device to reveal the predictable misalignment of the health and education sectors’ expected outcomes of school-based health initiatives. In conclusion, we argue that our exploration of issues pertaining to fidelity demonstrates the need for health and education sectors alike to conduct their work according to a clear articulation of the realistic, educative role that schools can play in promoting healthy living.

Dangerous Carers: Pastoral Power and the Caring Teacher of Contemporary Australian Schooling.

Whilst care imperatives have arisen across the breadth of Western societies, within the education sector they appear both prolific and urgent. This paper explores the deployment of care discourses within education generally and draws upon the case of Australian Health and Physical Education (HPE) more specifically, to undertake a Foucauldian interrogation of care. In so doing I demonstrate the usefulness of Foucaults pastoral power lens and its capacity to provide insight into the moral and ethical work conducted by caring teachers on behalf of the state (Acker, 1995). Following a brief overview of the advocacy, challenges and debates surrounding the issue of caring teaching within education, I draw on the work of Hunter (1994) and three case studies from a genealogical interrogation of HPE that employed Foucualts ethical fourfold as a heuristic device to reveal the ethical practices and objectives of the good HPE teacher. Drawing on this genealogical work, I argue that HPE teachers and their colleagues have been purposefully incited to constitute themselves as agents of pastoral power. From this Foucauldian perspective, I conclude with an exploration of the unintended and possibly ‘dangerous’ practices of caring teaching that may emerge within the complex and messy nexus of contemporary self‐constitution.

School health education in changing times: Curriculum, pedagogies and partnerships

This book explores the complex nexus of discourses, principles and practices within which educators mobilise school-based health education. Through an interrogation of the ideas informing particular models and approaches to health education, the authors provide critical insights into the principles and practices underpinning approaches to health education policy, curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. Drawing on extensive literature and research, the book explores and considers what health education can and should do. Chapters examine the extent to which health education, past and present, has attended to the needs and interests of young people in school environments, as well as assess common pedagogical approaches and whether the outcomes tally with expectations. By considering the problems in teaching health education, curriculum making, health education pedagogies and porous classrooms, the book offers a knowledge base from which educators can consider how theories and models can sit together to shape curriculum and influence practice. School Health Education in Changing Times will be of key interest to postgraduate students, researchers and academics in the field of health education. It will also be a valuable resource for teacher educators, current teachers, and those on professional development courses who want to navigate the moral minefield surrounding health education.

Primary Schools and the Delivery of Relationships and Sexuality Education: The Experience of Queensland Teachers.

Primary school provides an appropriate opportunity for children to commence comprehensive relationships and sexuality education (RSE), yet many primary school teachers avoid teaching this subject area. In the absence of teacher confidence and competence, schools have often relied on health promotion professionals, external agencies and/or one-off issue-related presentations rather than cohesive, systematic and meaningful health education. This study examines the implementation of a 10-lesson pilot RSE unit of work and an accompanying assessment task in two primary schools in South-East Queensland, Australia. Drawing predominantly from qualitative data, the research explores the experiences of primary school teachers as they engage with RSE curriculum resources and content delivery. The results show the provision of a high-quality RSE curriculum resource grounded in contemporary educational principles and practices enables teachers to feel more confident to deliver RSE and minimises potential barriers such as parental objections and fear of mishandling sensitive content.

Health by stealth – exploring the sociocultural dimensions of salutogenesis for sport, health and physical education research

ABSTRACT Sport, health and physical education (SHPE) researchers have increasingly embraced the salutogenic model of health devised by Aaron Antonvosky, to re-understand and problematise the relation between movement, physical activity or physical education on one hand, and health on the other. However, contemporary research employing Antonovskys theories has almost exclusively focused on the sense of coherence scale. In so doing, we suggest salutogenic researchers have missed opportunities to explore the sociological aspects of Antonovskys work. In responding to this challenge, we demonstrate the generative possibilities posed by social theory for those seeking to inform and design salutogenically oriented SHPE programmes for children and young people. As such, we first review Antonovskys theory of salutogenesis to highlight the sociocultural aspects of his model. We then draw on these sociocultural underpinnings to propose additional, alternative approaches to salutogenic research in SHPE, according to the theoretical and methodological tools devised by Michel Foucault [1990. The use of pleasure: The history of sexuality (Vol. 2, R. Hurley, Trans.). New York: Vintage Books]. In conclusion, we propose a schedule of research questions to inspire qualitative endeavours that move beyond privileged biomedical perspectives, to investigate health in terms of how individuals live a good life. In short, we contend that such investigations are best achieved when researchers approach ‘health by stealth’.

Health-education policy interface: the implementation of the Eat Well Be Active policies in schools

While grappling with their traditional core business of imbuing students with official curricular knowledge, schools have simultaneously, increasing demands to take on health promotion responsibilities. This paper examines the mandated implementation of the Eat Well Be Active (EWBA) Action Plan and its subsidiary ‘Smart’ policies in schools in the state of Queensland, Australia. Within the context of health promotion, the interaction between the health and education policy interfaces was explored. In particular, we paid close attention to the responses of the schools and their staff to the convergence of various health policies within their institutions. Drawing on Bernsteins concept of field, this paper reports our analyses of responses within the reproduction field to the imperatives of the Smart policies. The results suggest that there exists a disjunction between the recontextualising and reproduction fields in terms of the EWBA policy intent and implementation.