Mikael Quennerstedt

The youth sports club as a health-promoting setting: An integrative review of research

Aims: The aims of this review is to compile and identify key issues in international research about youth sports clubs as health-promoting settings, and then discuss the results of the review in terms of a framework for the youth sports club as a health-promoting setting. Methods: The framework guiding this review of research is the health-promoting settings approach introduced by the World Health Organization (WHO). The method used is the integrated review. Inclusion criteria were, first, that the studies concerned sports clubs for young people, not professional clubs; second, that it be a question of voluntary participation in some sort of ongoing organized athletics outside of the regular school curricula; third, that the studies consider issues about youth sports clubs in terms of health-promoting settings as described by WHO. The final sample for the review consists of 44 publications. Results: The review shows that youth sports clubs have plentiful opportunities to be or become health-promoting settings; however this is not something that happens automatically. To do so, the club needs to include an emphasis on certain important elements in its strategies and daily practices. The youth sports club needs to be a supportive and healthy environment with activities designed for and adapted to the specific age-group or stage of development of the youth. Conclusions: To become a health-promoting setting, a youth sports club needs to take a comprehensive approach to its activities, aims, and purposes.

Healthy Bodies: Construction of the Body and Health in Physical Education.

In physical education, bodies are not only moved but made. There are perceived expectations for bodies in physical education to be ‘healthy bodies’—for teachers to be ‘appropriate’ physical, fit, healthy and skilful ‘role models’ and for students to display a slim body that is equated with fitness and health. In teachers’ monitoring of students with the intention of regulating health behaviour, however, the surveillance of students’ bodies and associated assumptions about health practices are implicated in the (re)production of the ‘cult of the body’. In this paper, we consider issues of embodiment and power in a subject area where the visual and active body is central and we use data from Australian and Swedish schools to analyse the discourses of health and embodiment in physical education. In both Swedish and Australian physical education there were discourses related to a fit healthy body and an at risk healthy body. These discourses also acted through a range of techniques of power, particularly regulation and normalisation.

Exploring the relation between physical activity and health * a salutogenic approach to physical education

This article takes a point of departure in the debate whether physical education should consider a limited or an increased commitment towards public health goals and a public health agenda. The article further discusses the relationship between physical activity and health, and the perspective of health in physical education. This is done through a critique of the dominance of a pathogenic perspective of health, as well as through a salutogenic approach regarding health as a process. A salutogenic approach makes, as suggested in the article, other questions—salutogenic questions—possible. In this sense, physical activity and movement can be regarded as something more than mere protection against disease or overweight, and by posing salutogenic questions we can enrich our understanding of the relation between physical activity and health, and in consequence richness to the perspective of health in physical education. With a salutogenic approach, the pupils’ unique and common experiences of health, movement, body ideals or outdoor-life can meet a wider perspective of health. This would facilitate a health perspective in physical education that draws attention to the qualities, abilities and knowledge that pupils can develop, and, in the name of learning health, point the way to the possible contribution of physical education in pupils’ health development in terms of how physical education can enrich their lives, strengthen them as healthy citizens and contribute to a sustainable (health) development.

Investigating learning in physical education—a transactional approach

The purpose of this paper is to suggest and describe a methodological approach for studies of learning within school physical education (PE) in order to investigate and clarify issues of learning in an embodied practice. Drawing on John Deweys work, and especially his use of the concept transaction, a transactional approach is suggested as a way of developing an action-orientated method necessary for investigating learning in PE. The approach is illustrated by extracts from a video analysis of a PE lesson in Sweden, and shows how an analytical focus on meaning making, actions, events and participators in meaning-making processes can help to overcome methodological challenges related to dualist and cognitivist approaches and reach a deeper knowledge of student learning issues in PE.

Risky bodies: health surveillance and teachers' embodiment of health

In the current climate of health surveillance, governmental measurement and control as well as a focus on individual responsibility for risk are prevalent in school contexts. Physical education is a crucial site for the production and reproduction of health messages and thus is an important location through which health and healthy bodies are constructed and surveilled. Within a broader project with 16 participants in an urban city in the USA, it was found that the work of physical education teachers involved the management of a range of risky bodies – both their own bodies and the bodies of others. Risky bodies were unhealthy bodies, bodies read as overweight, ageing bodies and injured bodies. The physical education teachers’ identities were embedded in their desire to embody health but not in simplistic, unified ways. In a climate of health surveillance, the teachers took personal responsibility for managing risk and were both the embodiment of bio‐citizens and part of the mechanisms of (re)producing bio‐citizens.

Understanding Movement: A Sociocultural Approach to Exploring Moving Humans

The purpose of the article is to outline a sociocultural way of exploring human movement. Our ambition is to develop an analytical framework where moving humans are explored in terms of what it means to move as movements are performed by somebody, for a certain purpose, and in a certain situation. We find this approach in poststructural theorizing, primarily in the work of scholars who emphasize the materiality of the sign, and the performative function of discourse. We will use this approach to engage with motor development, motor ability testing of children, and the results deriving from such practices. In addition, we engage in a critical discussion of some current attempts to complement biomechanical, medical, and psychological ways of understanding movement with phenomenological and sociocultural perspectives. We conclude by stressing the importance of exploring what it could mean to move in an endless range of moves (and bodies and identities).

Feel good—be good: subject content and governing processes in physical education

Background: In this paper a study of both subject content and governing processes in Swedish physical education is presented. The reason why an analysis of both content and processes is of special interest is that it makes it possible to understand the encounter between the institutional level and the practice of education. Purpose: The purpose of the paper is threefold: (1) to analyse the subject content in physical education through identifying discourses embedded in its practice; (2) to illustrate how the subject content is created/re-created in physical education practice through various governing processes; and (3) to discuss how governing processes also become content through the socialization of students in terms of becoming a certain type of social citizen. Research design and data collection: The empirical material used is collected in connection with a national evaluation of physical education in Sweden, commissioned by the Swedish Government and the Swedish National Agency for Education. This paper uses local curriculum documents from 72 schools and 15 video-recorded physical education lessons from five schools. A starting point for the methodological framework is discourse theory and the governing perspective developed by Michel Foucault (1978/1991, 1980, 1982/2002). The governing perspective is used as a methodological tool, and we work with two overarching analysis themes: one oriented towards what pupils are governed, in terms of discourses embedded in physical education, and the other how the identified discourses are created/re-created in the practice of physical education. We also use the methodological framework as a tool to discuss how the governing processes also become content—a content of socialization. Findings: The results show that physical exertion and active participation are the main threads that run though the analysed material. In connection with physical exertion and active participation, pupils are also encouraged to cooperate with others and to compete. The content of socialization is primarily directed towards different components of willingness, for example a will to do ones best and a will to try, where the pupils are expected to be participatory, take responsibility and govern their own actions in the direction of that which is most reasonable. Conclusions: A clear message is communicated in physical education in Sweden—be active and work up a sweat. This is also concerned with fostering good character, i.e. creating correct attitudes and approaches through physical activity—be an active and willing person. Physical education is consequently a place where both political volition and the creation of todays citizens are staged. It is thus not only physical exertion—the physiological effects of exercise and involvement in sports and physical education—that is in the foreground of the activities we study in physical education. It is also about becoming a certain type of social citizen.

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.

What did they learn in school today? A method for exploring aspects of learning in physical education

This paper outlines a method for exploring learning in educational practice. The suggested method combines an explicit learning theory with robust methodological steps in order to explore aspects of learning in school physical education. The design of the study is based on sociocultural learning theory, and the approach adds to previous research within the field, both in terms of the combination of methods used and the claims made in our studies. The paper describes a way of collecting and analysing the retrieved data and discusses and illustrates the results of a study using this combination of explicit learning theory and robust methodological steps.

Inter-student interactions and student learning in Health and Physical Education : A post-Vygotskian analysis

Background: Group work is often used in Physical Education (and Health – HPE). In this paper, we propose that despite: (1) its widespread use; (2) advances surrounding HPE models that utilize group strategies; and (3) a significant amount of literature dealing with group work in other school subjects, we do not have a particularly good theoretical understanding of group learning in HPE. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose one way of conceptualizing individual learning in peer interaction based on three tenets of post-Vygotskian theory that relate to the zone of proximal development (ZPD); namely that in learning situations: (i) group members engage in shared communication; (ii) expert–novice relationships can develop and change during group activities and (iii) constructing knowledge can be thought of as reaching agreement. Participants and setting: Empirical material was generated with eight different HPE classes in lower and upper secondary schools in Sweden. Schools were selected in a way that maximized variation and were distributed across four geographic locations with varying sizes and types of communities. Data collection: Observational material was produced at each of the sites with the use of two cameras: one stationary and the other mobile. Stationary filming maintained a wide-angled focus and captured the entire class. Mobile filming focused on different groups working within the classes. During mobile filming, between two and five students were generally in the frame and filming was directed at sequences in which a group of students worked together on a specific task. Data analysis: Analysis of the data focused on two kinds of incidents. The first comprised a sequence in which two or more students were interacting to complete a task which they could not immediately do and were engaged in collective signification by talking about or doing the activity in mutually compatible ways. These conditions were sufficient in our view to signal the creation of a ZPD. The second kind of incident fulfilled the first criteria but not the second – i.e. the students were interacting but not in mutually compatible ways. Findings: A post-Vygotskian interpretation of three group work sequences draws attention to: (i) the flexible and fluid nature of ‘expertness’ as it exists within groups; (ii) the unpredictable nature of member interactions and (iii) the challenging role that teachers occupy while trying to facilitate group work. Conclusion: Such an interpretation contributes to a growing understanding of group work and helps HPE practitioners to make the most of a teaching strategy which is already used widely in schools.