For more than 30 years, physical education (PE) academics in universities and teacher education colleges have drawn attention to issues of social justice specific to the context of PE and advocated for PE teachers in fields, gymnasiums and other physical activity spaces to do a better job of promoting more equitable outcomes for all students. Building on this advocacy, in the late 1990s, countries such as Sweden, Norway, New Zealand and Australia have designed school health and physical education (HPE) curricula that locate social justice as an explicit aim and goal of this school subject. In the ensuing years, little research has examined how teachers operationalise teaching for social justice. Building on this research gap, EDUHEALTH is an international research collaboration between researchers/teachers of Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) from Sweden, Norway and New Zealand, that aims to contribute to the understanding of how teachers of PE teach for social justice by examining, and reporting on, their teaching practices. Ultimately, the broader aim of the project is to influence the practices of PE teachers and PETE students by reifying social justice pedagogies In this presentation, we begin by revisiting the background and design of this research, followed by a discussion of the theoretical (paper 2) and methodological (paper 3) aspects of the project, before we report on some initial findings as generated by the pilot studies conducted in Sweden, Norway and New Zealand. The early findings from the Scandinavian countries are that social justice pedagogies of the PE teachers are based on strong social democratic principles. For example, teachers called on student voice in selecting learning activities and contexts, endeavoured to ensure that PE provided appropriate learning opportunities to all ability groups, and removed structural constraints that limited student participation. In contrast, in the New Zealand context, addressing cultural privilege and marginalisation were the dominant social justice pedagogies. For example, teachers used indigenous language and traditional games, and purposefully structured practical activities and units of work to make them more inclusive of all students. These differences reinforce suggestions that teaching for social justice cannot be conceptualised as a single pedagogy that can be enacted without regard for the learning context (Freire, 2009; Tinning, 2010). Notwithstanding the importance of context, we conclude by stating that sharing these pedagogical practices with international PETE and PE teachers and researchers has the ability to reaffirm and enhance social justice teaching practices in HPE.

Freire, P (2000) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. (30th anniversary ed.). New York, NY: Continuum. Tinning R (2010) Pedagogy and Human Movement: Theory, Practice, Research. New York: Routledge.