The study examines school-based physical activity in investigating teachers' perceptions of a physical activity-related professional development (PD) intervention in New Zealand primary schools. Eighteen semi-structured interviews with six teachers from two schools was the primary data collection method. Using a selected programme,…

The teaching personal and social responsibility (TPSR) in physical education (PE) has a research base dating back some years. There is significant literature pertaining to senior students, the underserved, problem youth in America, teaching responsibility in gym settings, and through PE and in special projects. At the fore-front of this literature…

Internationally, recent research has indicated that the health and physical education (HPE) curriculum has become at least to some extent "an open market", with rapid growth in the number of external providers and diversity of resources targeted towards schools and teachers. This research acknowledges that the programmes and instruction…

Despite extensive critique, the teaching of Health and Physical Education (HPE) continues to be characterised by individualised and performative ideologies which are reflected in part by a continued focus upon fitness testing. There has been little attempt, however, to explore Australian HPE teachers' thoughts and reasoning for its privileged…

It is commonly recognised that health and well-being are influenced by social conditions, such as the transition to higher education. This study explored student perceptions and experiences of factors that impacted on health and well-being during the first year of university studies. Data for this study were collected via an online student…

This study assessed the feasibility and impact of introducing a programme of an additional 30 minutes per day of moderate physical activity within curriculum time on learning and readiness to learn in a large elementary school in south-east Queensland, Australia. The programme, Active Kids Active Minds (AKAM), involved Year 5 students (n = 107),…

The teaching of health literacy in school-based health education (SBHE) is of international interest, yet there is less ready access to how conceptions of health literacy can be operationalised in school programmes. More specifically, while articulated in curriculum documents such as the incoming Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical…

The commercial media is an influential sociocultural force and transmitter of health information especially for adolescents. Instruction in critical media health literacy, a combination of concepts from critical health literacy and critical media literacy, is a potentially effective means of raising adolescents' awareness about commercial…

Health literacy research and scholarship has largely overlooked the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities (ID), though growing concern about the health inequalities they face has increasingly given rise to health promotion interventions for this group. However, these interventions reference a rather limited vision of health literacy…

In Australia and New Zealand recognition of Polynesians is almost exclusively defined by their physicality. Sought after for size and strength on the sporting field, excellence in sport is arguably regarded as a life goal in itself. This paper will examine how this situation arose and the implications for Polynesians living in Australia. For a…

Health-related knowledge has been assumed to inform lifestyle choices for school-aged students. A "health-promoting school" provides the conceptual framework for this intervention. A large boarding school developed, implemented and refined a Nutritional Symbol System for their dining hall. The effectiveness of this social marketing…

Competition is an integral aspect of many physical education lessons, and one of the central characteristics of units and lessons adopting the Sport Education model. Pedagogy has a key, yet under-researched, role to play in supporting students to develop social and emotional skills that will enable them to cope with situations in which they…

This paper reports on the development and testing of a hybrid model of teaching games--The Style "E" Tactical (SET) Model. The SET is a combination of two pedagogical approaches: Mosston and Ashworth's Teaching Styles and Bunker and Thorpe's Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU). To test the efficacy of this new model, the…

New emerging sports such as snowboarding reflect the possibility for a range of femininities and masculinities to be embodied by participants and in so doing have the potential to be more egalitarian that traditional sports. This article draws on a study conducted on snowboarding to extend the body of knowledge relating to female experiences of…

In 2007 the elite Australian Rules footballer Ben Cousins was suspended by the Australian Football League for 12 months for "bringing the game into disrepute". Cousins was the first, and at the time of writing, the only player to be suspended by the AFL for actions and behaviors that were claimed to be damaging to the reputation of the game and…