To Örebro University

Background, purpose, and theoretical framework: According to Knorr-Cetina, the development of knowledge occurs in objectual practice within what she refers to as epistemic cultures. We assume this also applies to knowledge in movement. However, there is a lack of insight into the epistemic cultures of movement practices, which may be why physical education (PE) is sometimes reduced to recreational physical activity or 'correct technique' in predetermined movements. In this article, we explore educational gymnastics, a practice often perceived by PE teachers as 'difficult' to teach. The purpose of the article is to explore how the epistemic culture of gymnastics informs gymnastics educators' content knowledge (CK) when they teach educational gymnastics in a PETE context. How do experienced gymnastics educators use the tools that the epistemic culture offers in teaching to support objectual practice?

Method: Four TEs specialising in educational gymnastics participated in a workshop with the authors of this paper, where TEs and authors jointly explored the epistemic culture of gymnastics through deliberation and practical examples about how teaching for the development of knowledge in movement is accomplished in gymnastics. Additionally, two gymnastics lessons conducted by one of the TEs were observed, during which ethnographic interviews were held with students and TEs. Knorr-Cetina's notion of epistemic cultures, along with Jeraj and colleagues' aspects of gymnastics feedback, framed the analysis.

Results and conclusions: The analysis demonstrated how the TEs used aspects of feedback - visual perspective, visual experience, motor experience, personal relationship, methodological knowing, and biomechanical knowing - to create an objectual practice where the exploration of various gymnastic learning objects, in this case 'stability' and 'rotation' as they are expressed in a trampette jump with rotation, was the focus. The analysis indicated that the objectual practice oscillated between a convergent approach, which provided learners with a sense of direction, and a divergent approach, which provided learners with opportunities to explore different solutions to movement problems.

Purpose: This study investigates what enacted knowledge is in movement for preservice teachers and teacher educators within two different physical education teacher education courses at two universities.

Method: Data were generated through video recordings, and brief interviews were conducted during two teaching units focused on gymnastics/parkour and acrobatics. The data set comprises 4 hr of gymnastics and parkour instruction at one university and 3 hr of acrobatics at another.

Theory: The study is grounded in activity theory, which emphasizes the interconnected actions of individuals engaged in a collective activity and the object toward which their actions are directed.

Findings: The findings reveal that the enacted knowledge deviates from knowledge in movement, which was the purpose of the teaching. Developing knowledge in movement was often overshadowed by didactic thinking and prevailing norms-such as avoiding moving beyond one's comfort zone-and by differing interpretations of explicitly stated learning objectives.

Background: In the last 40 years, physical education (PE) scholars have developed an array of approaches for teaching games. This development is positive in that PE professionals now have a wealth of practically-oriented scholarship to help them teach games. Yet the widespread availability of prescriptions for teaching games potentially reduces both the need and opportunity for teachers to exercise their practical judgement when working with games.

Aim: The specific aim of the current investigation is to develop an understanding of how physical education teacher education (PETE) provides preservice teachers with opportunities to develop practical judgement with respect to games teaching in one course.

Theoretical framework: We rely on Joseph Dunne's (Dunne, Joseph. 1997. Back to the Rough Ground: Practical Judgment and the Lure of Technique. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Pess; Dunne, Joseph. 2005. "An intricate fabric: Understanding the rationality of practice." Pedagogy, Culture & Society 13 (3): 367-390) notion of practical judgement. Practical judgement refers to the knowledge individuals use in complex and dynamic situations, where they need to find resonance between general principles relevant to a practice and the particular characteristics of the situation they are dealing with.

Methods: Nine practical PETE lessons focusing on games were observed over a period of three weeks at one university in Sweden. Three three-hour lessons took place once with approximately 44 students. Three two-hour lessons took place twice (i.e. six times in total), each time with half the student cohort. Video data were produced by one researcher. The researcher alternated between active participation and passive participation in the lessons.

Findings: The PETE lessons provided the preservice teachers with four different types of opportunities to exercise their practical judgement: (1) opportunities to judge how principles of games teaching would operate in school contexts; (2) opportunities to compare different approaches and content against one another; (3) opportunities to consider the teacher educator's pedagogical decisions; and (4) opportunities for preservice teachers to take on teaching roles.

Discussion: We suggest that problematic situations where different interests compete and where deliberation is necessary, are valuable in PETE contexts. We also propose that providing space for preservice teachers to exercise their practical judgement may mean that they make loosely informed decisions. The investigation thus provides insights into a common trend seen in games scholarship.

Impact statement: This case study reminds physical educators of the importance of working reflectively when teaching games. In the context of a long-standing debate about effective ways to teach games, the paper provides physical education teacher educators with concrete examples of how an expert games educator encouraged the preservice teachers in his course to use their practical judgement.

Background: Principles such as instructional alignment and step-by-step progression are often seen as crucial features of good assessment practices in school physical education (PE). These features are problematic from nonlinear educational perspectives, which are based on the idea that movement learning cannot be expected to take place in the same manner for all students. Without some resolution of the contradiction between nonlinear pedagogies and principles of good assessment, the likelihood of physical educators fully embracing any kind of nonlinear approach to movement education remains doubtful.

Purpose and research question: Our purpose in this paper is to illustrate how assessment for and of learning (AfL and AoL) can look when implemented in nonlinear movement education practices.  

Methods: Illustrations of AfL and AoL are drawn from an investigation in which one educator implements a nonlinear movement education module. The module focuses on juggling for students at high school (grade nine students aged approximately 15 years). The module provided students with 10 x 50-minute lessons to explore juggling. Data were generated through observations (film clips and field notes) and ethnographic-type interviews that were conducted with the students during the lessons.

Findings: In the context of the nonlinear movement education module, AfL became: Interacting with students in joint exploration; Introducing learning strategies; Encouraging students to clarify and verbalize the object of learning; Helping students identify critical aspects of the movement activity, and; Inviting students to consider alternative learning trajectories. The educator then evaluates the students’ learning experiences in the context of a group performance at the end of the module. This performance can be seen as an instance of holistic assessment within a nonlinear movement education practice. 

Conclusions: The suggested holistic perspective on PE assessment could help educators to: circumvent dichotomies such as mind-body and theory-practice; approach students as active meaning-makers; re-frame students’ actions as emergent and context-dependent; and replace direct instruction with explorative teaching and learning methods. The major contribution of this study is that it shows how assessment for and of learning can be implemented in nonlinear movement education practices within a linear, goal-related and criterion-referenced, education system.

Previous research shows that enacting a new curriculum is a complex process. Teachers can be enthusiastic and committed to new curricular objectives, but they can also experience frustration and disappointment. Scholars have suggested that teachers who perceive lack of support, or tensions between their personal philosophies and the educational principles underpinning a new curriculum, struggle to enact new curricula in line with their intent. Our purpose in this article is to illustrate how two Physical Education (PE) teachers experienced the enactment of a new official curriculum. An action research approach was used as design of the study. Researchers cooperated with two PE teachers for 18 months. The empirical material consisted of 50 sets of field notes from the two teachers' teaching lessons, transcripts from one semi-structured qualitative interview with both teachers following the completion of the school year. The material also consisted of reflection logs produced by the teachers containing written notes about their experiences of the curriculum enactment. We used literature on educational change (Fullan, M., & Hargreaves, A. (1991). What's worth fighting fore? Working together for your school. Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation) as our theoretical framework. Our findings show that the teachers experienced the curriculum enactment in contradictory ways. Shifting from previous PE practices that focused on sports activities and emphasized teacher instruction, to pedagogical practices informed by the new PE curriculum (including sociocultural perspectives of learning and assessment), led to uncertainty, surprise, satisfaction, as well as distrust. Our findings also showed that the teachers' experiences of the enactment were influenced by perceived gender biases. We argue that teachers' beliefs and the teaching culture were particularly influential dimensions regarding the two PE teachers' experiences of the curriculum enactment. Practitioners and researchers attempting curriculum enactment in the future should pay careful attention to such dimensions, especially given that tensions and uncertainty often occur during any educational change.

The aim of this paper is to identify the dominant discourses of health and wellbeing that are offered in health education in Swedish schools. Issues of health and wellbeing are covered mainly in four school subjects in Sweden: physical education and health, home and consumer studies, biology, and social studies, and therefore, we interviewed teachers from those subjects to generate data. Six interrelated health discourses were identified from the data. All discourses were, however, also embedded within a health discourse with a comprehensive description of health as physical, psychological and social wellbeing. Results suggest that schools offer a Western and White discourse of health and that some content is overemphasised, and some is missing in relation to other non-dominant discourses of health and wellbeing.

This article focuses on teachers’ responsiveness to changes in assessment policy and how new guidelines affect assessment and grading practices in school physical education (PE). The previous national curriculum in Sweden directed many teachers towards an atomistic approach to assessment.The reformed guidelines, in contrast, mandate that teachers should strive for holistic assessment.Thus, the purpose of this study was to generate an understanding of how teachers interpret and translate the policy for holistic PE assessment and discuss potential consequences of their policyenactments. Data were generated through six focus group interviews with 22 PE teachers working at different secondary and upper secondary schools. The theoretical framework usedin the analysis is based on Ball et al.’s (2012a) work on policy enactment. The findings show that teachers view the policy for holistic assessment in PE positively. They claim that it enables them to concentrate on the bigger picture, weigh factors in terms of significance during assessment, and connect to students’ lives outside of PE. We discuss the potential consequences ofthe teachers’ policy enactments in terms of the backwash of the reform. On the one hand, the reform results in reduced transparency and a risk that certain areas of knowledge may be marginalised. On the other hand, the study suggests that teachers’ autonomy with respect to assessment increases. This autonomy, which ideally leads to valid holistic assessments and fair grades, is tailored to the students’ conditions and what they see as meaningful knowledge in life outside ofschool.

The aim of this paper is to provide insights into how young people who have been forced to migrate perceive school health education. Eighteen individuals aged 15-19 years (10 females, 8 males, average age 16.9 years) took part in either focus group interviews (n = 7) or individual interviews (n = 1). Participants were first presented with short scenarios concerning health education and were invited to use these scenarios as starting points to discuss their own experiences of health education. Participants were then presented with a collection of photographs that portrayed people displaying broad dimensions of health. Participants were asked to discuss the significance of the health dimensions in their lives, and describe how these dimensions were covered in school health education. Our findings suggest three broad perceptions of health education content: a moderately enthusiastic perception, a disengaged perception, and a marginalized perception. These findings: raise questions about whether the provision of health education matches the needs of young migrants, point to cultural differences in the way health topics are understood, and suggest that school health education might influence how migrants interact with health service providers.

In this article we problematize equity as inclusion and make a theoretical argument about rightful presence for the 'fat body' in PE. We argue that equity as inclusion is based on a guest/host power dynamic and a 'culture of hospitality' that comes with it. This argument rests on the assumption that inclusion involves a host who represents and safeguards the norms, values, and power structures of the community, welcoming the guest into that community. The host, in this context the institutional (cultural and material) conditions that constitute PE, will control the guests by the rights extended to them, rights that at any moment can be withdrawn. This creates a guest-host power dynamic by which students that do not fit the usual standards of PE will always be 'other', and their rights of presence and participation will always be conditioned.By introducing the concept of rightful presence, we hope to contribute to a debate on the inclusion of the 'fat body' in PE. In developing this argument, we re-analyze Cat Paus & eacute;'s story as described in her article (Paus & eacute;, C. [2019]. (Can we) get together? Fat kids and physical education. Health Education Journal, 78(6), 662-669) and use the situations she describes as a hypothetical example and an illustration to discuss what exclusion, inclusion, and rightful presence, respectively, mean for fat kids in PE.We argue that rightful presence can function as a fruitful and vital concept in research and pedagogical practice in that it encourages scholars and educators to recognize the right of all students to be fully present and to have the same rights as everyone else. It also helps us to ask new questions from a different perspective regarding, in this case, the rightful presence of fat bodies in PE.

Teaching food and health may be challenging, especially in classrooms where young people from different cultures, ethnicities, and religions meet. This article explores teachers' navigation of ethical complexities when teaching food and health in classrooms with immigrant students. Five didactical strategies were identified: (1) The educare strategy, (2) The tiptoeing strategy, (3) The collegial support strategy, (4) The intercultural strategy, and (5) The pluralistic strategy. These didactical strategies are embedded in various educational settings. Our results demonstrate that a further focus on ethical and intercultural competence should be carefully supported and implemented in teacher education and continual professional development programmes for teachers.