Health and physical education from a European perspective

At the end of the 20th century, several authors pointed out that physical education (PE) was crossing a crisis. The emphasis on the fight against a growing sedentariness of the society became progressively one of the priorities of the national education leaders all around the world. In many countries, PE teachers had to implement new approaches in order to teach to the youth how to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Pre- and in-service PE teachers’ training started to propose programmes integrating health education in PE lessons while the reputation of the physical literacy concept spread quickly. Recently, Chin and Edginton (2014) invited scholars from 40 nationalities to describe the contemporary policies and practices of health and PE applied in their countries. Among those contributions, 23 concerned European countries. In this presentation, we will propose an overview of the trends that can be identified in this sample of European nations. Preliminary analysis underlines that combination of PE and health education is distributed along a continuum. At one extremity, PE’s input on health is not clearly expressed even if PE is expected to improve pupils and students’ health through selected activities like endurance training. At the opposite extremity, countries emphasize the role of the PE teacher as a health educator and not only through a limited focus on PA promotion and on the preparation of physically educated citizens. The second part of the paper will illustrate some actions that are undertaken in order to motivate the PE teachers to implement 'health enhanced physical activity' projects in their lessons. Such approaches respect principles associated with the concept of quality physical education (QPE). These PE classes should allow students to have positive individual and collective learning experiences where they develop knowledge, skills and dispositions that allow them to be autonomous and responsible decision makers relative to engagement in PA and sport in their lives (AIESEP, 2014). PE teachers need a new framework (Haerens et al., 2011) in order to leave their ingrained professional practices.. That starts by changing their representations on physical activity. Action-research, development of communities of practice, pedagogical cases and demonstration of the students’ interest for teaching approaches focusing on lifestyle aspects represent promising strategies to succeed in the process of changing the priorities. AIESEP (2014). 2014 AIESEP Position Statement on Physical Education Teacher Education. Available on Internet: http://aiesep.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2014-AIESEP-Position-Statement-on-Physical-Education-Teacher-Education.pdf Chin, M.-K. & Edginton, C.R. (2014). Physical Education and Health Global Perspectives and Best Practice. Urbana, IL: Sagamore. Haerens, L., Kirk, D., Cardon, G., & De Bourdeaudhuij, I. (2011). Toward the Development of a Pedagogical Model for Health-Based Physical Education, Quest, 63:3, 321-338