"Developing the whole me": citizenship, neo-liberalism and the contemporary health and physical education curriculum

Abstract

In several Australian states in recent years, the fields of health education and physical education have been united in schools as a single learning area. This article identifies the discourses on health that are evident in the context of a specific contemporary health and physical education curriculum — that operating in Australian schools in the state of Victoria. By analysing the curriculum document and teachers' accounts of the principles of the curriculum and their experiences in teaching it, it is shown that particular notions of health, related to neo-liberal ideas about citizenship, holism and personal identity, currently dominate. There is strong evidence of the influence of 'the new public health' tenets and ideas about the importance of emotional management and self-esteem in both the curriculum document and teachers' accounts. It is argued, however, that while the dominant tenets of the curriculum are generally espoused by teachers, there is also evidence of resistance, either intended or unintended, to these tenets at the site of the school.