Network Activities

It is noteworthy that three of our members (Dr Rachel Sandford, Dr Oliver Hooper and Dr Julie Stirrup) worked - with colleagues - in partnership with UNESCO last year on the authoring of their Global Quality Physical Education Report. This was a landmark publication that provides an update on the status of the subject globally and has already been shared internationally. Presentations on this work have been shared at previous ECERs and will likely be shared at future ones as publications are developed.

Beyond this, we continue to promote NW18 and to ensure that it remains connected to other local and international organisations and their respective special interest groups in the broad field of sport pedagogy (e.g., AIESEP, BERA, SERA, AARE, AERA, CEREPS). Our members – and, in particular, our convenors - take active roles in many of these wider organisations and special interest groups and, in doing so, ensure that NW18 is promoted.

Our members contribute to a range of international journals in the broad field of sport pedagogy, with several members holding roles such as Editors, Associate Editors or Review Editors for these publications. These journals include: Sport, Education and Society, Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, European Physical Education Review, British Educational Research Journal, Qualitative Research in Sport Exercise and Health, and Journal of Teaching in Physical Education. We actively encourage our members to publish in these - and other - journals in the field and to organise special issues based on topics that have been focused on during ECERs. Currently, three of our members (Dr Julie Stirrup, Dr Shirley Gray and Dr Oliver Hooper) are leading a special issue within Sport, Education and Society on Border Crossings in Health and Physical Education: Policy, Curriculum and Pedagogy. This relates to work that has been presented within NW18 at ECERs over a number of years and is due to be published in 2026.

In addition to journal publications, NW18 will also be leading a special blog series as part of the EERA Blog about PE curricula across European borders, linked to the Network Project that they will be facilitating this academic year. Dr Rachel Sandford will be acting as the lead editor on this, with support from Dr Oliver Hooper.

Finally, it is worth noting that our members have also led and contributed to an edited book (by Dr Fiona Chambers, Dr Rachel Sandford, Dr Oliver Hooper and Dr Lee Schaefer) on Research with Children and Young People in Physical Education and Youth Sport which published in late 2023. This was the result of a previous Network Development Project led by NW18.

NW18 has much planned for the forthcoming year including facilitating a Network Project for which it was successful in receiving funding from EERA. This will be led by Dr Shirley Gray and will focus on ‘Physical Education Curriculum Learning across European Borders’. It will seek to facilitate cross-border dialogue among PE professional from across Europe to support critical thinking and to begin to re-imagine physical education for a more socially-just future. This Network project will feature a series of online webinars and culminate in a pre-conference symposium ahead of ECER 2026 in Tampere, Finland. Alongside this, we will also be leading a special blog series for the EERA Blog about PE curricula across European borders.

We will also request to change the name of NW18 to the Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy Network.