Architectures of practice: constraining or enabling PE in primary schools

Abstract

ABSTRACTTo the outside observer, physical education in many primary schools, both in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally, continues be practised in ways that students of the 1970s would recognise. The only significant change would arguably be the introduction of an increased regime of testing, and a narrower focus on physical health agendas. This is despite a large body of research, curriculum developments, and professional learning opportunities that have advocated for changing programmes and pedagogical practices to ensure that physical education is relevant and inclusive for all learners. I employ the theories of practice architectures and ecologies of practice that are detailed extensively in Kemmis, Wilkinson, Edwards-Groves, Hardy, Grootenboer, Bristol [2014. Changing practices, Changing Education. Singapore: Springer] and ecologies of practice [Kemmis, S., C. Edwards-Groves, J. Wilkinson, and I. Hardy. 2012. “Ecologies of Practices.” In Practice, Learning and Change, edited by P. Hager, A. Lee, and A. Reich, 33–49. London: Springer] to examine what constrains and enables transformative approaches to physical education in primary schools. In unpacking the cultural-discursive, material-economic, and socio-political arrangements that hold particular primary school physical education practices in place, I search for illumination about how to transform the conditions that reproduce particularly practices and the expense of transformative practice.