Social exclusion - in sports as well as in all other areas of life - is linked to low socioeconomic status, poverty, unemployment, and low educational attainment. This means that disadvantaged social groups are permanently trapped in a lifestyle lacking physical exercise. In a broader sense, social exclusion from sports activities affects a much…

The drop off in physical activity (PA) for children has led to an increased focus on their PA engagement, due to the poor health outcomes often linked to this decline. Subsequently, stakeholders, across a variety of fields, have problematised and intervened in activity settings to address this decline. Many of these studies acknowledge high levels…

School-based physical activity (PA) interventions stand out as a highly valued knowledge technology in relation to attempts to promote daily physical activity (DPA) among school youth. The purpose of the paper is to explore technologies of knowledge that guide school-based PA interventions in lower secondary schools and discuss their power-related…

Physically inactive children in rural areas are overlooked in research because of the dominance of urban perspectives focusing on physical activity rather than inactivity. The aim of this article is to examine an emerging collective story of how physically inactive children (aged 9-11 years) in two rural areas experience their relationships with…

Many children nowadays do not meet the recommended amount of physical activity during a day and are more sedentary, which is accompanied by decreased physical and social health, and well-being. For some children, the school can be the only outlet for playful and organised physical activity. Almost all children attend school for a large part of…

Researchers, politicians, physical educators, and children -- all advocate the significance of joy of movement. Children desire movement because they find it joyful and meaningful, while politicians and physical educators are often interested in the associations between joy of movement and participation in physical activity. Researchers have…

There is some evidence that people from lower socio-economic groups (SEGs) are more likely to be either inactive or less active than those from higher SEGs. Currently, there is little evidence to indicate whether this trend is the same for the student population. This study aims to provide this insight to understand the habits and behaviours of…

This article investigates how particular conceptions of physical development (PD) are enacted in early childhood studies in Toronto, Canada. Following critical childhood studies scholars who emphasize the urgency of re-formulating relationships with taken-for-granted concepts in the field, we argue for a practice of noticing, tracing, naming, and…

The aim of this article is to shed light on the lifeworld of thirteen-year-olds with high and low activity levels in relation to movement activities. Insights on this topic could serve as important resources for all those who contribute to the development and life quality of young teenagers through various contexts involving movement activities.…

Policy classifies and shapes people/subjects in particular kinds of ways. Focusing on the context of Health and Physical Education (HPE), this paper analyses policy documents from Australia, the United States of America (USA) and Wales. We pay particular attention to how learners are represented within and across the three policy documents, and we…

There is now a wealth of research on obesity both from biomedical and socially critical perspectives. However, less research has focused on the lived experiences of young children and particularly those who are perceived as 'sedentary'. This paper critically examines the issue of obesity as related to children's experiences of physical…

The aim of the study is to shed light on how physical education (PE) is experienced among a varied group of adolescents in school, and to nurture debate related to the relationship between adolescents' lived experience of PE and their identity-formation processes. Nuanced insights can help to increase teachers' ability to perceive, react to and…

Participation in physical activity (PA) tends to decline between childhood and adolescence, and in Australia the bulk of this decline has been shown to occur in the domain of non-organised PA (e.g. active play, informal sports). A better understanding of the reasons for the decline in non-organised PA may support strategies to counter barriers and…

Based on a set of two, semi-structured, individual interviews with 21 Japanese men aged between 25 and 57, from Tokyo and Osaka, this paper explores the rationale underneath their eating habits and engagement in physical exercise. Ten and 11 of the men identified themselves as 'beefy' and 'slim-muscular man', respectively. The analysis of…

Although private sector involvement in physical education seems to increase, academics and practitioners have been highly critical of its impact. This paper examines the evolution of Quality Physical Education Guidelines of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as an example of a public-private partnership…