Teachers' talk about health, self and the student ‘body’

Abstract

Adrienne Rich's phrase 'the personal is the political' is well-worn in feminist literature. In a context where health imperatives are deeply embedded in school cultures and programming, we suggest the phrase has renewed purchase. Drawing on the testimonies of three New Zealand teachers, we explore the ways in which personal health dispositions and practices contour what and how physical and health education is envisaged in diverse school contexts and who is regarded as particularly 'at risk' of poor health outcomes. Teachers' perceptions of their students' health needs, their understanding of the role of schools in ameliorating children's health problems and the pedagogical choices made are each, we suggest, intimately linked to their lived histories of 'health', their understandings of their own and others' bodies and their personal convictions about what, for them, constitutes a 'good' and/or 'healthy' life. While the ubiquitous nature of health discourses, particularly those linked to obesity reduction, might at first blush, invoke notions of a shared agenda and a uniform commitment to improving children and young people's health, our analysis points to the diverse ways in which teachers constitute their role as health and physical educators, 'care' about students and teach health and physical education curricula.

Testing, training and tensions: the expression of health within physical education curricula in secondary schools in England and Wales

“…It also demonstrates the diverse ways in which teachers constitute their role as health and physical educators, with their pedagogies influenced by their experience, understanding and personal convictions about what constitutes a healthy lifestyle (Burrows & McCormack, 2012). Indeed, it is not just teachers who can exercise some freedom in terms of how they interact with a given programme; McDermott's (2012) classroom based study in Canada of a school-wide fitness-based PE initiative aimed at producing healthy children, highlights the regulatory, surveillant and performative nature of the programme and the children's attempts to usurpe it with an embodied sense of pleasure and fun.…”

“…Since the time of this study, further research in the UK has investigated English secondary PE teachers' experiences, views and understandings of health-related exercise and related CPD (Alfrey, Cale & Webb, 2012) and the monitoring of health, activity and fitness in PE curricula (Cale, Harris & Chen, 2012). In addition, there have been studies about health in PE conducted at a similar micro-level in other countries Burrows & McCormack, 2012;Cliff, 2012;McDermott, 2012;, all of which will be drawn upon when discussing the findings of the current study.…”

What We Know, What We Do and What We Could Do: Creating an Understanding of the Delivery of Health Education in Lower Secondary Government Schools in Western Australia

“…These discussions suggested an overwhelmingly negative perception of the quality and quantity of HE and highlighted variance in delivery as a significant concern. In accepting that contextual differences between schools may contribute to perceived variances in provision and that teachers ultimately choose how and what to enact in their pedagogic work (Tinning, 2014), this study acknowledged that this variance could also allow multi-dimensional understandings of health to develop, enabling students to make sense of themselves as healthy (Burrows & McCormack, 2012;Harris & Leggett, 2013). As the prevailing view in these discussions was that HE was falling short of recommended provision (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013;Kirby et al, 1994;Nation et al, 2003;Ryan et al, 2012;Shilton et al, 1995), this study sought to question the capacity of HE to support and strengthen healthy living amongst lower secondary students in WA schools.…”

‘Doing it for themselves’: a qualitative study of children’s engagement with public health agendas in New Zealand

“…This paper reports on data gathered as part of a collaborative international ethnographic study investigating the impacts of health imperatives in primary and secondary schools in the context of the 'obesity epidemic' (Burrows and McCormack 2012). 1 Our study engaged with students, teachers and administrative staff in two primary and two secondary schools located in lower North Island cities in New Zealand.…”

“…Obesity concerns have driven multiple interventionist practices both in and out of schools (e.g. Burrows and McCormack 2012;Burrows and Wright 2007;Gard 2008;Gard and Vander Schee 2011;Kirk 2006;Rich, Evans, and De Pian 2011). These practices often position physical activity and nutritional education as a cure-all for excess weight, which is unequivocally linked to poor health outcomes (Welch and Wright 2011).…”