This paper describes several practical activities that reveal how complex and nonlinear pedagogies might underpin primary physical education and school sport lessons. These sample activities, involving track and field, tennis and netball components, are designed to incorporate states of stability and instability through the modification of task…

There has been growing interest in alternative assessment strategies that focus on student participation within higher education over the past 20 years. At the same time, it is important to note that there is very little published research dealing with alternative forms of assessment in the field of physical education teacher education (PETE). In…

Research evidence suggests that, worldwide, physical education in early years is mainly taught by primary teachers (Graber et al., 2008; Hunter, 2006; Kirk, 2005). Descriptions of primary teachers' experiences of teaching physical education are particularly essential as an avenue for developing better-quality teacher training for teaching primary…

Within many school contexts physical education and sport have historically been positioned as polemic, and while there has been plenty of rhetoric about physical education as well as sport within education, there has seldom been engaged debate or discussion about the relationship between physical education and sport in school settings. This…

This article draws on ethnographic work undertaken with 21 students and several members of staff at an elite girls' school in New Zealand to investigate the relation between school culture, pedagogical practices and discourses of physical education and school sport. It explores what and who contours the participation of these young women in sport,…

Since independence in 1965, education and sport have been instrumental in Singapore's nation building, with a rapid rise in education and economic status. This article examines the roles of physical education and school sport in the local context and makes comparison with global themes ("instrumentality" and "marginality"). It is argued that…

In Scotland, substantial changes in the management of education at national, local authority and school/community levels are afoot. Central to future improvements are how teachers translate curriculum guidelines, with an increased focus on health and wellbeing and holistic learning experiences, into constructivist inclined pedagogical practices.…

This article focuses on the challenges arising for primary school teachers who have responsibility for teaching physical education (PE) and who are working in particularly complex and contestable policy contexts. In New Zealand provision of physical education is identified as occurring amidst multiple, and not necessarily compatible, sets of…

In arguing for more comprehensive practice, policy and research considerations of assessment in physical education (PE), this paper outlines and discusses four integrated conditions of assessment efficacy for the development and promotion of productive assessment in PE. These conditions are prefaced by the proposition that quality PE requires the…

Stories capture the richness and nuances of meaning in everyday existence and give insight into the complexity of our experiences and understandings. They can evoke an emotional response in the reader, which moves them beyond the literary experience to a more "lived" and embodied experience. This article is concerned with autobiographical…

In this article the importance of a quality care system within school physical education is emphasized. Taking into account the fact that education is a critical part of human development and a government concern, striving towards an optimization of the quantity and quality requirements of education can be regarded as a necessity. This applies as…

This paper brings a speculative, sociological perspective to the nature of "ability" in physical education (PE) and asks why this aspect of embodiment, with notable exceptions, has received so little critical attention in the professional discourse of PE and associated research in recent years. It is suggested that thinking about "ability" has…

This article is an attempt to provide an alternative view of sports science and future sport worlds. For reasons to do with fundamental science, involved advocacy and committed service, and in a period of intensified globalization, it is necessary to reconfigure the nature and scope of teaching and research within the subdiscipline of sports…