Abstract:
Curriculum research drawing on education policy sociology has previously highlighted the complex nature of texts, contexts and the relationships between them. Extending Connelly and Connelly’s (2013) conceptualisation of curriculum this paper begins by pursuing this relationship in and across formal, implicit and prudential curriculum policy pertaining to Health and Physical Education (HPE) and school sport. Policy, professional, social and cultural contexts are identified as ever present and influential in shaping these three curriculum forms of text and their interrelationships. The second part of the paper turns attention to research which is seeking to both explore and productively leverage textual and contextual possibilities to develop informal sport as a future focus in HPE curriculum developments and provision of school sport in Australia. Findings from a recently completed ARC research project (Jeanes et al., 2024) provide the foundation for identifying informal sport as discourse that aligns with visions for inclusive and sustainable learning and participation, but that also prospectively may be met with systemic resistance. This recognition of inherent possibilities and tensions underpins the research questions consequently being investigated in this research: (1) In what ways do formal and implicit HPE curriculum texts speak to the value and legitimacy of informal sport as a context and focus for teaching and learning in HPE, (2) What specific features and/or elements of formal and implicit curriculum texts prompt or enable engagement with informal sport as (a) a teaching/learning context and (b) as a content focus, and (3) What aspects of HPE and sport policy contexts support prudential curriculum developments that will signal increased alignment of HPE and school sport with informal sport participation? The paper outlines the methodological framework for the study, which is utilising curriculum mapping, documentary analysis and exploratory group interviews with HPE teacher educators and curriculum representatives to address the above questions. Preliminary findings from a first phase of documentary data collection and analysis, focusing on the Australian Curriculum Health and Physical Education (AC: HPE) version 9, supporting curriculum materials, and the new National Sport Plan and the Play Well strategy in Australia, are presented. Discussion returns to the central problematic of whether currently marginal yet potentially transformative discourses and educational interests will attain legitimacy and profile in HPE teaching and learning and school sport provision in Australia, and addresses the work that teacher educators and researchers need to engage in to realise the pedagogic possibilities evidenced in this research.