In Norway, a new National curriculum for all school subjects was implemented from 2020 (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2019). According to the overall curriculum aims, HPE shall contribute with insight into cultural diversity, foster respect for others, promote democracy and give equal opportunity for all. Students are expected to a greater extent to explore their own identity and movement capabilities. The curriculum also includes activities from the indigenous Sámi culture in Norway (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2019). While analysing the former HPE curriculum in Norway, Dowling and Flintoff (2018) pointed to how competence aims that mirrors ‘Nordic movement culture’ with winter-activities and ‘friluftsliv’ can lead to practices that marginalize non-white movement cultures and students from minority backgrounds. A review of ‘friluftsliv’ as part of HPE indicates that this can be a real case in Norway (Abelsen & Leirhaug, 2017). Despite that the new HPE curriculum can be said to invite social justice pedagogies (Gerdin et al., 2022), research indicates challenges with gender and disabilities, as well as it seems to be the sports-active students that get the higher grades and the most of the benefits of HPE (Erdvik et al. 2019; Säfvenbom et al., 2015). This presentation is based on qualitative in-depth interviews with six HPE teachers and seven students from three upper secondary schools. The interviews were conducted as part of preparing a critical participatory action-research (CPAR) within the schools (Kemmis et al., 2014). The schools were selected through purposive sampling (Bryman 2016). The interviews were particularly interested in the local understandings and enactments of social justice pedagogies, as well as possible challenges in the HPE context of teaching for equity and social justice (Freire, 1970). The analysis of both teacher data and student data followed a six-phase reflexive thematic analysis approach inspired by Braun and Clarke (2021). The findings show different understandings and perceptions of social justice, both as a general concept and in concrete examples from their HPE experiences. While teachers say they make effort to create dialog and inclusive practices in their teaching, the students do not experience and understand this the same way. In addition, the initial themes include assessment in HPE as controversial, teacher not listening in ‘the so-called dialog’, and suggest that HPE still struggle with inequities between girls and boys. We conclude by sharing some reflections on how we will use these findings in going forward, doing CPAR with HPE teachers as co-constructers of knowledge.

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