‘Publicness of education’: framing possibilities for decolonising practices in Health and Physical Education

Abstract

Calls have been made for a public pedagogy that works at the intersection of education and politics to enact a concern for publicness. These are calls for pedagogy that values plurality in human togetherness and educational conditions in which all young people can flourish. In this paper my specific focus is exploring how publicness of education can be conceived in relation to encouraging inclusive, equitable and decolonial ‘ways of being doing and knowing' in HPE. I adopt a genealogical approach to explore ‘conditions of possibility' that have contributed to durability of a ‘white' Eurocentric norm for HPE. Selected reports, curriculum documents, newspaper and reference articles are drawn on to illuminate discourses, and power relations implicated in this dominant framing. This paper represents an attempt to disrupt common sense understandings and practices of HPE founded settler-colonialism and new forms of neo-liberal colonialism. Approaches premised on activist, culturally responsive pedagogies as well as affective, embodied, relational dimensions of human togetherness are suggested. I propose that questioning ‘why' ‘how' and ‘what' is taught in HPE is critical for reframing ‘thinking and feeling’ required for pedagogical and curricular practices that can enhance educational justice for Indigenous students.