NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
ERIC Number: EJ1231409
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1357-3322
EISSN: N/A
Embodied Encounters with More-Than-Human Nature in Health and Physical Education
Taylor, Nicole; Wright, Jan; O'Flynn, Gabrielle
Sport, Education and Society, v24 n9 p914-924 2019
Despite the importance of interactions with natural environments for personal and social well-being, there is only limited evidence of the relationship between the environment and health as an idea or area of study in school education in Australia. Logically, the place for such a study, at least in Australia, would be within the Health & Physical Education (HPE) key learning area. However, in HPE, alternative ways of considering health beyond the dominant 'healthism' discourses which privilege physical activity, fitness, food and nutrition struggle for any kind of existence. Gruenewald (2004. A Foucauldian analysis of environmental education: Toward the socioecological challenge of the earth charter. "Curriculum Inquiry," 34(1), 71-107) suggests looking to the margins of a field to see what knowledge is silenced or subjugated in order to open up new conditions of possibility. This challenged us to look beyond taken for granted ways of thinking about health to identify other resources, perhaps unrecognised as yet, that teachers might draw on to constitute their knowledge of health. To do this, we look to interview data collected when teachers were asked to talk about their personal experiences of the relationship between the environment and health. The analysis of the interviews demonstrated how the teachers conceptualised the relationship between the environment and health by drawing on embodied experiences and affective encounters with more-than-human nature. By theorising these encounters through a post-human, new-materialist lens, we demonstrate how their corporeal knowledge, developed through embodied experiences, has the potential to assist teachers in formulating less institutionalised health understandings. We argue that these encounters with more-than-human nature can serve as alternatives to those dominant healthism discourses that invoke problematic risk, fear and crisis responses.
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education; Secondary Education; Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A