This symposium reports on an international research initiative, the Health and Physical Education Without Borders (HPEWB) project, that explored the factors that influence the appeal and opportunities for external providers in... [ view full abstract ]
This symposium reports on an international research initiative, the Health and Physical Education Without Borders (HPEWB) project, that explored the factors that influence the appeal and opportunities for external providers in relation to health and wellbeing practices in schools. To date, dissemination of this project’s findings have drawn on case studies generated within the respective author’s national context. In contrast, this symposium adopts a comparative approach to consider international similarities and nuanced differences in the outsourcing of HPE as a global phenomenon.
Against the backdrop of global neoliberalism, the project's researchers were interested in the dominant cultural, educational and social discourses that impact upon the agency of school leaders and teachers in making decisions for students’ health-related learning outcomes. Extending Ball’s (2012) work, this research maps the emergent global networks of providers and changed governance structures that now constitute how ‘health’ work is done in schools, through both formal HPE curricula and informal school-based practices.
Our first paper provides a rationale for the theoretical perspectives and methods employed in the analysis of data gathered across our six countries. The remaining three papers each draw upon an international comparison of the coded data according to the activities of agents acting within and between, what Bernstein (2000) identifies as, the primary, recontextualising and secondary fields of the pedagogic device. Four dominant themes of global neoliberalism, networks, futures orientations and message systems of Bernstein’s arose across these analyses. Collectively these papers demonstrate that, irrespective of national vernacularisms, there are strong similarities in how schools are responding to their students’ health-related learning needs.
In combination, these papers seek to empower HPE professionals through insight into the global nature, extent and potential effects of networks that exist between external providers and other agencies seeking to produce and reproduce health work and curricula in schools.
