The joy of movement: the non-participant in physical education curriculum design

ABSTRACT This article seeks to expose the unconscious exclusion of the joy of movement in PE curriculum, using the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) as a case study. The article discusses the joy of movement, the social construction of movement pleasure and the role of movement pleasure in the physical education setting. An analogy of the ‘non-participant’ is used to encourage readers to think about the similarities of the entrenched biases that occur when we design curriculum, units of work, or lessons in PE. These biases often shape lessons that instinctively neglect the ‘non-participant’; and in a similar fashion shape lessons where ‘joy’ or ‘pleasure’ are simply addendums or bi-products. The article pays homage to the challenges the physical education profession has faced with regard to performativity; acknowledging that this has marginalised the inclusion of pleasure as an explicit outcome in curriculum. Nevertheless, the authors draw from literature to express the importance of movement pleasure in PE, and subsequently encourage those designing curriculum to think about joy more explicitly in achievement objectives or outcomes.