Putting criticality into health and physical education and teacher education: seizing the power of racial literacy and Indigenous knowledges

Abstract

Health and physical education (HPE) is a discursively white, Western learning domain. Despite minor disruptions through radical scholarship in HPE research and teacher education (often referred to as PETE), and the implementation of curricular devices and/or models-based practices promoting inclusion in HPE teaching, more radical work to honour Indigenous knowledges (IK) is needed. Since all HPE curricular encounters in Australia occur upon stolen and unceded lands and waters, and ongoing possession is justified through racially constructed educational narratives of Western superiority, the suppressed histories, Indigenous languages, and Indigenous knowledges have a fundamental role to play. In this paper, we argue that Australian HPE educators must (1) develop a greater depth of knowledge about our entwined Indigenous and non-Indigenous histories and present, (2) acquire tools to develop racial literacy from a coalition of critical Indigenous studies and Critical Race Theory (CRT), before (3) turning towards IK in HPE. These theoretical tools are not typical in PETE and require educators and researchers to acquire an initial criticality and to invest in ever-evolving racial literacies. We provide some examples of radical scholarship and suggest what conditions are necessary to address the historical and recurring epistemic violence in Australian HPE.