Funding and focus

This two-year project was funded by the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education (ICSSPE). Colleagues from the Association Internationale d'Ecole Superieures d'Education Physique (AIESEP) were commissioned through this fund to develop a global values based education tool for elementary schools.

Overview

The assertion that sport and Physical Education (PE) develop desirable, positive values is a long-held view. This may be linked to the three unique characteristics of PE and Sport: teaching-learning environments, subject matter and caring teacher/coach-student relationships. More recently, there has been a renewed focus on values-based education (VbE) as children and youth are perceived as being at risk in terms of their behaviours, their health, their affiliations, or their readiness to contribute to the future society. Charging schools with the task of explicitly teaching values raises questions about which values are chosen and how are they taught, learned and assessed. In recognising this challenge, WADA, UNESCO, the IOC and ICSSPE commissioned a research project on the development of a school-based VbE Toolkit that specifically advocates the potential of sport and PE as a site to secure student engagement and positive youth development. The assumption is that a VbE curriculum taught through sport and PE provides students with transferable positive decision-making skills within and ‘beyond the schools gates’.

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