HPE in Aotearoa New Zealand: the reconfiguration of policy and pedagogic relations and privatisation of curriculum and pedagogy

Abstract

This paper centres on research that investigated the contemporary policy, curriculum and pedagogical landscape of Health and Physical Education (HPE) in Aotearoa New Zealand, in the light of increasing impressions that provision was moving to an 'open market' situation. Publicly available information sourced via the Internet was used to examine the public and privately funded initiatives, programmes and resources targeted towards the provision of HPE across all phases of education. The data arising revealed an array of government and non-governmental agencies and organisations acting as producers of resources and deliverers of HPE-related programmes in schools. It also clearly pointed to structural convergence between government and non-government sectors. This paper locates the findings from the research amidst developments in policy relations and networks spanning education, health and sport, and presents a theoretically oriented critical reexamination of the structural reconfiguration of contemporary HPE in Aotearoa New Zealand. Analysis brings together insights from Ball and Junemann's work on policy networks and Bernstein's theorising of the social construction of discourse to explore linkages between policy and pedagogic relations, and the discourses and practices in HPE. Attention is directed to the significance of changes in the nature of both the Official Recontextualizing Field and Pedagogic Recontextualizing field, and the connections between the two fields. Changes in the recontextualizing fields are discussed in relation to official pedagogic discourse of HPE and the pedagogic discourse of reproduction. This analysis brings to the fore prospective curriculum and pedagogic implications of new policy networks and new networks of providers associated with provision of HPE in schools. Discussion acknowledges potentially varied readings of contemporary developments and addresses the opportunities and challenges for teachers and teacher educators in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally.

Big policies and a small world: an analysis of policy problems and solutions in physical education

“…Funding decisions have played a key role in raising the profile of sport and health agents/agencies in this field, to the point that the Ministry of Education has been seen as inactive (Petrie & lisahunter, 2011), with its influence in the field superseded by sporting agencies in particular. As discussed in more detail elsewhere (Petrie et al, 2014;Penney et al, 2015) our data clearly demonstrated that this change in the configuration of the Official Recontextualizing Field was being mirrored in the Pedagogic Recontextualizing Field. In both fields, the impression was that significant displacement of educational agencies was occurring.…”

“…The first illustration comes from research in Aotearoa New Zealand, and a project that I undertook in collaboration with Kirsten Petrie and Sam Fellows (Petrie, Penney, & Fellows, 2014;Penney, Petrie, & Fellows, 2015). The project arose in response to our growing awareness of the growth in socalled external providers offering resources, services and 'support' to schools and teachers, that was variously directed towards their provision of HPE, physical education, health, physical activity and/or sport programmes within or outside of curriculum time.…”

“…Hence, who is influential in this field and what agencies and organisations have status and authority as recontextualizing agents are important. Recontextualizing agents appropriate and transform texts, re-positioning them in relation to other texts and practices, and modifying and re-focusing them through 'selection, simplification, condensation, and elaboration' (Bernstein, 1990, p. 192) of content (see Penney et al, 2015).…”

Teachers’ Perceptions of Physical Education in Aotearoa/New Zealand Primary Schools

“…Penny et al (2013) examination of physical education and sport in primary schools was, for example, restricted to six schools while Penny et al (2015), study looking at ''the public and privately funded initiatives, programmes and resources targeted towards the provision of HPE'' (p 42) was limited to an analysis of what was available on the internet.…”

Mum’s Diet and children’s voice in health education

“…Invariably this and other health messages espoused by the children reinforced the concept of corporeality. Research suggests that it was difficult and complex for some of the primary generalist teachers in the study to grasp and implement multiple health concepts and broader educational policies and initiatives simultaneously (Atkins, 2015;Penney, Petrie & Fellows, 2015;Petrie, 2012). Instead, a simplistic popular health discourse such as obesity was replicated and a pedagogy of healthism was adopted.…”