Scraton's [1992. "Shaping up to womanhood: Gender and girls' physical education." Open University Press] ground breaking research highlighted how Physical Education (PE) contributed to the reproduction of gender power relations; more specifically, how three messages around motherhood, sexuality and physicality, reflected through PE's…

By examining on-course pedagogical practices, recent research has sought to inform the development of National Governing Body (NGB) coach education courses. Coach education programmes are, however, social constructs, and are influenced by policies and socio-economic factors. To inform future provision, there is a need to understand the…

In an attempt to better prepare prospective PE teachers for teaching pupils with disabilities, our research takes up the call of Sparkes, A., Martos-Garcia, D., & Maher, A. (2019). Me, Imperfect Osteogenesis and my classmates in physical education lessons: A case study of embodied pedagogy in action. "Sport, Education and Society,"…

Formal coach education has been described as an activity which promotes conformity from course attendees. To date, however, few studies have looked at how coach education has been socially constructed over time. The present study addresses this gap and provides a Freirean account of English Football Association (FA) coach education since 1967.…

New interdisciplinary approaches including fat studies, fat pedagogy, critical weight studies and critical health education have attempted to challenge forms of weight-based oppression associated with obesity discourse within education settings. Very little is known about young people's views of these alternative critical approaches. Theoretically…

Physical education (PE) in England, has historically been and is increasingly seen as a subject in which political agendas can and are being enacted (Penney, [2008]. Playing a political game and playing for position: Policy and curriculum development in health and PE. "European Physical Education Review" 4(1): 33-49) as health, sport and…

Collaborative action learning was undertaken in response to the growing criticisms of formal coach education. Since it is strongly felt that we can no longer merely commentate on what is not happening in terms of coach learning, a key requirement now is to demonstrate there are other options. The Coach Learning and Development (CLAD) programme was…

This article explores how our understandings of gender and Physical Education (PE) have developed since the publication of "Shaping Up to Womanhood" in 1992. I reflect back on my research which, using qualitative methodology and a socialist feminist lens, explored dominant gender relations in the teaching of girls' PE in English…

Policy agendas for early childhood education in the UK as in many countries elsewhere are driven by expectations that play will impact positively on a child's educational attainment, health and well-being. This paper focuses on health knowledge, social class and cultural reproduction within early year education in England, looking specifically at…

Within the UK and internationally, schools are increasingly being encouraged to call on external agencies and draw on the services of individuals, including sport coaches, to "help teach or lead sports within the school setting and out of school time". This trend arises from and has contributed to a changing policy landscape and…

Developing teacher education programmes founded upon principles of critical pedagogy and social justice has become increasingly difficult in the current neoliberal climate of higher education. In this article, we adopt a narrative approach to illuminate some of the dilemmas which advocates of education for social justice face and to reflect upon…

This paper aims to understand how pupils and teachers actions-in-context constitute being-a-pupil and being-a-teacher within a primary school physical education (PE) movement culture. Dewey and Bentley's theory of transaction, which views organism-in-environment-as-a-whole, enables the researcher to explore how actions-in-ongoing activities…

Despite reported increases in higher education (HE) sports coach education provision there are very few studies which have investigated student self-learning curricula as a mechanism to prepare sports coaches with the complexities of learning how to coach. Using an action research methodology, this article examines how case-method teaching (CMT)…

Research suggests that girls are disengaged in physical education due to the "traditional" way that it is taught, i.e. teacher-centred approaches with a primary focus on motor performance. In contrast, Cooperative Learning, a student-centred pedagogy focusing on learning in multiple domains, has had success in engaging girls in physical…

This paper was stimulated by the authors' attempt to understand the process of skill learning in dance. Its stimulus was a period of fieldwork based at the Royal Ballet School in London, and subsequent discussions with the school's teachers and with academic colleagues about how it was that the young dancers developed their characteristic set of…