Outsourcing is a complex, controversial and pervasive practice that is increasingly becoming a matter of concern for educational researchers. This article contributes to this literature by examining outsourcing practices related to health, sport and physical education (HSPE). Specifically, it reports data on specialist health and physical…

Focussing on the ideological aspects of privatisation, this paper explores ways in which "freedom" has been activated discursively to justify actions involving changes to both the structure and the content of formal education in the UK. Empirically, the paper will analyse examples in England of UK Government "new provider"…

Growing pressure on parents to equip their children with the skills required for future success, coupled with an increased focus on providing quality learning experiences in the early years, has contributed to an upsurge in the enrolment of young children in formal (often privatised) activities. Moreover, in response to growing societal concerns…

This paper centres on research that investigated the contemporary policy, curriculum and pedagogical landscape of Health and Physical Education (HPE) in Aotearoa New Zealand, in the light of increasing impressions that provision was moving to an "open market" situation. Publicly available information sourced via the Internet was used to…

As the discussant of this special issue, I focus on two related ideas: choice and self-interest. First, I explore the idea of choice and its relevance within research that concerns itself with a heavily loaded concept like "social justice". My proposal here is that future scholarship that explores the consequences of privatised health…

The emergence of digitized health and physical education, or "eHPE", embeds software algorithms in the organization of health and physical education pedagogies. Particularly with the emergence of wearable and mobile activity trackers, biosensors and personal analytics apps, algorithmic processes have an increasingly powerful part to play…

The concept of brokering is usually aligned with a business model of an intermediary helping the customer/client with their decisions/choices. As knowledge becomes increasingly accessible, and of varied origins, quality and veracity, the number of professionals engaged in knowledge brokering is simultaneously increasing. This paper considers if…

In this article, I examine the practice of outsourcing physical education (PE) lessons to external sports organisations. I draw from ethnographic research conducted with two primary schools in New Zealand to illuminate how outsourcing interconnects with the privatisation of education. Using Foucault's notion of government, I demonstrate how…

This paper reports on a study that explored black and minority ethnic (BME) students' experiences of physical education teacher education (PETE) in England. Widening the ethnic diversity of those choosing to enter the teaching profession has been a key policy objective of the Training and Development Agency--the government agency responsible…

The childhood years are highlighted as a crucial time when ongoing participation in physical activity can be nurtured and maintained. The nurturing of a child's proclivity to participate in organised sport normally falls into the domain of adults. While both parents and coaches have been identified as key influences on children's…

The field of physical education (PE), as it exists in teacher education, is dynamic as ways of preparing teachers to meet the needs of young people in contemporary times change. Such endeavours are underpinned by concerns about school-based PE, the alienation of students from PE, and responsibility for producing healthy students. Concerns also…

In this paper, we explore how physically disabled youth who participate in mainstream education discursively construct and position themselves in relation to dominant discourses about sport and physicality that mark their bodies as "abnormal" and "deviant". We employ a feminist poststructuralist perspective to analyze the…

High-performance sport is a big business, with nations such as Australia and New Zealand dedicating hundreds of millions of dollars in the development of facilities and in creating sporting centres of excellence. Historically, high-performance sport and elite athlete programmes (EAPs) were regulated to an extra-curricular space in schools or local…

Globally, paediatric obesity causes widespread concern, and the role of ethnicity is an important focus. Investigating how culture can mediate health-related behaviour through ideas about bodies, food and physical activity, while addressing a notion that the Pakistani community in Norway is particularly conservative and slow to change, this…

Research analysing the operation of power within sport and physical activity has exposed the marginalisation and exclusion of women's 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…