Critical engagement with digital health: A socio-material analysis of physical education teachers’ digital health mind maps

Abstract

This paper forms part of a DigihealthPE project in which we have been working with physical education (PE) teachers to co-create critical and embodied digital health pedagogies. As part of the project, we invited PE teachers to mind map their personal engagements with digital health technologies. We aimed to explore the potential openings and opportunities (and limitations) within these maps for critical thinking and action. Data were generated during a workshop with 12 PE teachers in Scotland. Informed by new materialism, we focus on the human and non-human factors and intra-actions evident within six narrative portraits generated from teachers’ mind maps. Our findings suggest that teachers were engaging complexly and extensively with digital health technologies, which we considered an opening for further critical work. Importantly, experiences of strong (negative) affect had the potential to transform engagements with digital health technologies. We conclude by exploring how the process of mind mapping helped us to see further opportunities for supporting teachers to engage critically with digital health technologies. We also argue that new materialist-informed critical practices in education may have transformative potential for helping teachers and pupils to engage critically with the moving body, technology and health.