Pedagogies for social justice in secondary school HPE – Insights from the EDUHEALTH research project 1.0

• Health and Physical Education (HPE) is a compulsory subject that is charged with providing important health outcomes for young people, yet as HPE teacher educators and researchers, we recognise that the way HPE is often taught in schools does not always provide equitable health outcomes to all students. The aim of the EDUHEALTH project was to identify school HPE teaching practices that promote equity and social justice. Data collection was based on principles of critical incident technique (CIT) methodology (Tripp, 2012) and stimulated recall interviews (Lyle, 2003). Data were generated through 20 HPE lesson observations and post-lesson interviews with 13 teachers purposively selected (Bryman 2016) from four schools in Aotearoa New Zealand, four in Sweden and three in Norway. Classroom observations focused on incidents that appeared to be addressing issues of social justice. To gain a deeper understanding of the teachers thinking, we questioned the teacher about what we had observed through subsequent stimulated recall interviews. Data were analysed through a six-phase thematic analysis approach that consisted of familiarisation with data, initial and advanced coding, identifying and naming themes and reporting findings (Braun and Clarke 2013).The findings presented in this paper will show how what we have coined ‘social justice pedagogies’  were enacted through building relationships, teaching for social cohesion, and explicitly teaching about, and acting on, social inequities. We argue that social justice pedagogies have elements of humanism that attend to the needs of students within the structures of each society, but also challenge these structures and provide students with the agency to address equity issues in their lives and the lives of others. We conclude by calling for the further development of social justice pedagogies in HPE which problematise knowledge construction and dominant ways of thinking and challenge students to change the structures that create social inequities.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Education

Pedagogik

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