Editorial note

Abstract

Welcome to the mid-year edition of Curriculum Studies in Health and Physical Education (CSHPE). Among the many things, our discipline does well is to pay respect to our influencers and thought leaders. I note that recently Richard Tinning was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from The Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences. This is a further acknowledgement of the reach of Richard’s social critical scholarship in HPE curriculum and pedagogy. I also wish to join the long queue of well-wishers acknowledging John Evans’ sustained and profound leadership as editor-in-chief of Sport Education and Society. Following the announcement of his impending retirement from the role, we pass on our best wishes and pay our respect to the enormous contribution he has made to the dissemination of research across the discipline. A crucial part of both Richard’s and John’s legacies is evidenced in the cast of able successors who have stepped up to play their part in leading the discipline. It is on the back of the generosity and mentorship of those that have fostered scholarship in the critical social sciences that Journals like CSHPE are able to flourish. In the opening paper in this edition, Belton and colleagues report on the evolution of a curriculum model developed to support the delivery of PE in the junior curriculum in Ireland. Highlighting the importance of curriculum intervention models having an inherent adaptability to evolve with the contemporary needs of curriculum, the contextual relevance of Y-PATH PE4Me is built on a cycle of continuous improvement. Underpinning this is unwavering commitment to nurturing student wellbeing through meaningful learning outcomes. Among the findings of the research is a recognition of the importance of curriculum models to be non-prescriptive and framed in ways that connect with real teachers in real settings. Following this, Gråstén and Kokkonen put the focus on teacher efficacy to contemplate the relative merits of sex segregation in PE settings. They note that despite vocal arguments against this practice, PE continues to see segregation argued as ‘reasonable’ on the basis of physical, cultural and religious differences between the sexes. It is interesting to note that less-experienced teachers tend to prefer greater homogeneity between learners and therefore are more inclined to support sex segregation. The authors conclude that more work needs to be done to improve teacher efficacy around actively accommodating a diversity of learner needs within PE settings. In the third paper, Tsuda and colleagues report on the learnings from the implementation of an on-line cross-cultural collaboration between schools in the USA and Japan. While this narrative-based enquiry was largely focused on the experiences of in-service and pre-service PE teachers, it was propelled by a desire to increase student awareness and appreciation of cultural difference. The outcomes of the study are positive and instructive, and lay the foundation for the wider application of interactive technologies in PE pedagogy as a way of building cultural competency through the discipline. Following this Walsh, Tannehill and MacPhail also direct their focus to the needs of teacher educators in their endeavour to prepare student teachers to engage effectively with curriculum change. Located in Ireland during a phase of significant curriculum reform the data collected from 14 teacher educators