Physical Education: What Future(s)?

This paper seeks to prompt professional debate about the future of physical education and, specifically, the form that curricula should take in rapidly changing times and societies. Arguments focus upon a reorientation and restructuring of the subject to address educational needs and interests relevant to the 21st century. The current revision of the National Curriculum for Physical Education in England and Wales is used as a basis from which to present a case for a distinctly new orientation to be reflected in the design of PE curricula, units of work and lessons. The work of Bernstein and Young is utilised in deconstructing long-established practices and outlining their potential reconstruction in ways that are informed by, and express, a 'critical pedagogy for social justice' [Fernandez-Balboa (1997) Critical Post Modernism in Human Movement, Physical Education and Sport (New York, State University of New York Press)]. A curriculum framework privileging learning achieved in and via activity contexts, as compared to learning of activities, is presented. The developments that are proposed are identified as highly challenging but arguably long overdue in physical education, and as matters of relevance to international professional communities, not only those in England and Wales.     

Book reviews

In the context of uncertainty and ongoing reform of senior secondary education in Australia, this paper addresses inclusivity in the design and implementation of senior physical education (PE) courses. Critical analysis of course developments in two states in Australia; Queensland and Western Australia, demonstrates ways in which course design, school and teacher decisions can all have wide reaching significance for students’ educational and vocational futures. Course developments in the two states are identified as pursuing inclusivity in different ways and as featuring significant flexibility in their requirements. Enactment of the embedded commitment to inclusivity and accompanying flexibility is shown to present considerable ‘scope for slippage’ from the intentions embedded in the official course texts. It is argued that curriculum developers, teachers and researchers should continue to seek to disrupt processes of generation, maintenance and transmission of inequalities within and beyond PE.     

Making Public the Private Life of Plants: The contribution of informal learning environments

Plants are essential to life on Earth and yet are often deemed invisible by the human populace. Botanic gardens are an under‐researched educational context and, as such, have occupied a peripheral arena in biology education discussions. This article seeks to readdress this absence and present the case for a more sustained use of informal learning environments, such as botanic gardens and homes, to make public the private life of plants and their role in sustaining life on Earth. By drawing on empirical data from a doctoral thesis and reviewing relevant research literature, the author argues for a renewed focus on botanical education within science education in both formal and informal contexts.     

Partnerships in Social Work Education

Historically, society has associated a visit from a child protection worker with the removal of children. In Canada in the 1960s, Aboriginal children were removed from their communities in alarming numbers and were referred to as the “sixties scoop.” This may in part explain the difficulty in recruiting Aboriginal social workers into child welfare practice. This reality prompted the development of a post–bachelor degree certificate aimed at increasing the number of Aboriginal child welfare social workers in northern British Columbia. The results discussed in this article stem from three certificate cohorts and highlight the development of new partnerships and students’ experiences. Two years following the completion of the third cohort, nearly 80% of the students recruited were still employed in the North.     

An Examination of Integrated Marketing Communication in U.S. Public Institutions of Higher Education

This research examined the strategic process of integrated marketing communication and its application in U.S. public institutions of higher education. A quantitative survey analyzed 42 leading U.S. public colleges and universities as ranked by U.S. News & World Report. To further examine the findings of the survey, qualitative interviews were conducted with nine of the survey respondents. A four stage integrated marketing communication framework, based on studies of the American Productivity and Quality Center, served as the foundation for the research. The findings revealed the importance of leadership and formal communication mechanisms and demonstrated that integrated marketing communication strengthens branding.     

The Reality of Fiction and the Ethics of Storytelling in Eleanor Estes's <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Witch Family</Emphasis>

This essay examines Eleanor Estes's critically neglected 1960 novel The Witch Family, arguing that the novel anticipates some of the major preoccupations of later children’s literature in its early concern with issues of textuality. While Estes is largely known as a writer of simple family stories, The Witch Family is an innovative work of metafiction, which explicitly engages with a number of philosophical and literary-critical issues central to postmodern and poststructuralist discussion. Posing central and overt questions regarding the relationship between reality and fiction, the novel illustrates the contextual, communal, and relational aspects of language and finally suggests that the ability to tell stories ethically is tied to the recognition of one’s own contingent position within language.     

Children's Ideas about Strengthening Structures

This research focused on 181 school children's (aged 5-13 years) responses to an Awareness of Technology Survey question intended to explore their conceptual knowledge of structural strength. The survey responses showed that the children had many productive ideas about structural strength prior to formal classroom instruction. After instruction, the children's ideas showed little overall change. The Discussion explores how the framework of the programme and professional development opportunities did not help the teachers to implement the programme. Suggestions for productive classroom experiences related to structural strength include: introducing children to a greater variety of building materials; assisting children to explore the physical and mechanical properties of materials; practising with vocabulary needed to describe properties of materials; providing opportunities to understand the pushes and pulls at work in a structure; and promoting design technology discourse.     

Skater girlhood and emphasized femininity: ‘you can't land an ollie properly in heels’

This study draws from interviews with 20 girls in British Columbia, Canada who participated to varying degrees in skateboarding culture. We found that skater girls saw themselves as participating in an ‘alternative’ girlhood. Becoming skater girls involved the work and play of producing themselves in relation to alternative images found among peers at school, at skate parks, online and in music videos. The alternative authority of skater girl discourse gave the girls room to manoeuvre within and against the culturally valued discourse of emphasized femininity. A subgroup of middle class skater girls, the ‘in‐betweeners’, used skater girl discourse as a way of distancing themselves from the sexism evident in skater culture as well as emphasized femininity. They used one discourse against another and took advantage of contradictions within skater discourse to forge a positive identity for themselves.