Background:Educating adolescent girls about their bodies provides girls with the opportunity to make meaning of their embodied identities for themselves. Knowledge of, and understanding of, embodiment has the potential for adolescent girls to be empowered within the physical education context. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore how adolescent girls articulate their embodiment and navigate their embodied identities within the public and private physical education context. Two research questions were addressed: (1) how do adolescent girls articulate their embodiment within the physical education context?; and (2) how do adolescent girls navigate and negotiate their socially constructed embodied identities within the public and private physical education context? Participants and setting: Participants were eight seventh grade girls in a same-gender and coeducational physical education class in a suburban middle school located in the Northeast, United States. Multiple data sources were used to explore adolescent girls' embodiment in physical education. Data collection: Data sources included: (1) critical incidents forms; (2) formal interviews with the adolescent girls; (3) journals; and (4) descriptive field notes of the girls' physical education classes. Data analysis: Data analysis was ongoing throughout the data collection process. Field notes were word-processed into narratives and interviews were transcribed verbatim. Critical incidents forms, transcriptions, journals, and field notes were coded using content analysis and the constant comparative method. Findings: Results indicated that participants' embodied identities in physical education focused primarily on the socially constructed idealized female body. Two major sections will represent the findings of the data: (1) meaning making of the body: the outer shell; and (2) public display of physical body: 'all eyes on me'. A central category is used to summarize the findings at the end of the results section. First, most participants' thoughts, feelings, and perceptions focused on the physical aspect of their bodies. Physical appearance, specifically body size and dress attire, was a repeated topic when participants provided descriptions of their own bodies. Second, aspects of physical education that publicized participants' bodies were changing clothes in the locker room, exposing the body based on clothing attire, and comparing self to others within activities. These eight girls were able to articulate their embodiment based on their current understanding of who they are, who they believe they ought to be, and how they believe others perceive them. Based on participants' own sense of self and concern about how others may survey and judge them, they created strategies (individually and collaboratively) to feel comfortable, safe, and trusting of others within the physical education environment.

Critical theorists have called attention to the intensification of diversity that is now occurring inside and outside of school, while critically engaging with the detrimental effects of globalization on equity, diversity, and social justice. Globalization presents new challenges to education and to issues of social justice. In this article, we argue that there is a need for scholars in the field of physical education (PE) to rethink and re-frame the social-justice agenda to address current inequalities produced by globalization. To support this argument, first, we reflect on the impact of global neoliberalism on PE; second, we discuss the ways in which, as a result of global neoliberalism, public health discourses have an "othering" effect on ethnically diverse young people; third, we propose a theoretical shift from a focus on equality to a focus on difference; and finally, we conclude with considerations for future research and curricula in school PE.

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Certain limitations remain unaddressed when utilizing the Teaching Games for Understanding approach, suggesting the need for more research on authentic assessment of skill development and tactical awareness in order to guide the design of developmentally appropriate curriculum materials. This study investigated physical education students’ (n=19; age: 13.71 ± 0.4) game performance during an invasion game, specifically the relationship between their skill execution and decision-making ability. The purpose of the study was twofold: (a) to devise and implement a ‘game context’ approach to assess the game performance components and in doing so, (b) to provide information that could be used to design suitable learning progressions within tactical teaching approaches. Students’ game performance was videotaped, and measures of skill execution and decision-making were developed from observational analyses. Decision-making was measured at two levels: a) decision making restricted to the selection of technical-tactical skills (i.e., passing, moving with the ball, getting free, marking, tackling, double teaming and interception; and b) decision-making in the adaptation to the tactical contexts of the game. Participants played a 5 vs. 5 modified eight-minute team handball game. Participants scored significantly higher in penetrating-the-defense context adaptation than in keeping-the-ball context adaptation. Participants showed a higher efficiency in decision-making than in execution in most of the technical-tactical skills; including on-the-ball over off-the-ball decision-making, and in attack compared to defensive execution. The findings also revealed significant relationships between decision-making and skill execution in shooting, tackling and passing.

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