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In many countries, fitness testing is used in physical education (PE). Advocates of fitness testing maintain that testing promotes physical activity and has long-term health benefits. Other scholars question using fitness tests for children in educational contexts and describe them as demotivating, embarrassing, and humiliating. The purpose of the study is to contribute to this educational dilemma with knowledge on the use of “fitness tests” in PE practice. This is done by exploring a pedagogical intervention in Sweden where tests were used to teach from a norm-creative perspective and considering how bodies with different weight and form could be included. We draw on “new materialist” methodologies, asking what tests do and can do in PE practice. In our analysis, we brought together six affective elements of what tests do. Many tests produced traditional PE practices, and there were apparent silences regarding body hierarchies, which often render big bodies invisible. Teaching tests paradoxically, however, also produced opportunities for creativity in moving and opportunities to reflect upon norms about justice and “normal” bodies. This analysis highlights the potential of teaching with the test in order for fitness tests to become educational.

In many countries, fitness testing is used in physical education (PE). Advocates of fitness testing in PE practice maintain that testing promotes physical activity, has long-term benefits regarding healthy lifestyles, and that it motivates students to be physically active. Fitness testing has, however, proven to be a contentious issue in PE, and other scholars question fitness tests for children in an educational context and describe them as demotivating, embarrassing, and humiliating. Despite criticism, fitness testing in school PE takes place, and we contend that using testing (or not), or indeed the way tests are used, is an educational choice teachers make with political and moral implications. The purpose of the study is thus to contribute to this educational dilemma with knowledge on the use of ‘fitness tests’ in PE practice. This is done through an exploration of a pedagogical intervention in a school in Sweden where tests were used to teach from a norm creative perspective in relation to how different bodies with different weight and form could be included. During the pedagogical intervention, the students tried different tests, discussed if tests were just or not, and also created their own tests. In the study, we draw on ‘new materialist’ methodologies asking what tests do and can do in PE practice. In our analysis, we brought together different affective elements of what tests do. These elements highlight that many tests produced traditional PE practices with activity, measurements, comparisons, and enjoyment in focus. Testing also in this way produced exposure and embarrassment. There were also obvious silences regarding body hierarchies, which often rendered big bodies invisible. However, teaching tests paradoxically also produced opportunities for creativity in moving, and opportunities to reflect upon norms about justice and normal bodies. As Alfrey and Landi (2022) and Alfrey (2023) contend, there seems to be a potential for de-territorializing in ma

In Sweden, the primary school has an overall goal to protect and support students' health development. Physical Education has an important role in reaching this goal and since 1994 health has been included in its designation (Physical Education and Health). The curriculum for Swedish PE has since aimed at developing students' physical, psychological, and social abilities, and providing knowledge about the importance of a healthy lifestyle (Lundvall & Meckbach, 2008). This development is not unique to Sweden, health has over the last decades become a central content in PE in many countries, often in response to a perceived threat from an "obesity epidemic", but also because of a general shift towards a “holistic” discourse in PE during the1980s and 1990s (Lynch & Soukup, 2016). This holistic discourse advocates a broader health concept, and PE as a critical and constructive tool for reflecting on and learning from experiences of different physical activities (e g. Quennerstedt, 2019). Research on PE teachers discourses of health and obesity suggest that they tend to see health as a matter of physical properties (e g.Vaera and Underwood, 2016; Gray et al., 2018). Body, size, and weight are often regarded as indicators of health. Thus, to be healthy is to be slim and fit, while unhealth is associated with fatness. PE teachers also tend to regard health as a matter of individual responsibility i.e., to have the character to do the “right” and “healthy” choices (e g. Garett and Wrench, 2012). While there are expressions of holistic perspectives of health they tend to be overlooked or subjected to a medical and pathogenetic approach. However, there are also expressions of ambivalence and counter discourses among PE teachers regarding how health is conceptualized (Welch & Wright, 2011;Gray et al., 2018). In a previous study using the same data as we will present here, we studied how PE teachers were using discursive resources related to obesity in creating prof

In contemporary times, young peoples’ bodies have become a focal point of attention both outside and inside of school. In physical education (PE), the body has always been central to the pedagogical encounter. However, given the rise of normative discourses on healthy and ideal bodies on the one hand and the diversity in students’ identities and sociocultural backgrounds on the other, the body has become a tricky educational matter for PE teachers. In this symposium, we bring together three papers that explore from different angles how PE teachers relate to overweight bodies and body ideals in their pedagogical practice. The papers come from Sweden, where the PE curriculum encompasses education on health and body ideals. Based on the three papers, we will discuss needs and possibilities for improvement in contemporary teaching practices. Paper 1: Obesity Discourse among Swedish Physical Education Teachers Presenters: Korp, P.; Johansson, A.; Barker, D. & Quennerstedt, M. Paper 2: Physical Education Teachers and Competing Obesity Discourses: An Examination of Emerging Professional Identities Presenters: Barker, D.; Quennerstedt, M.; Johansson, A. & Korp, P. Paper 3: Teaching on Body Ideals in Physical Education: Didactic Possibilities and Challenges Presenters: Schubring, A. Bergentoft, H. & Barker, D..

Migration over recent years has meant that issues of integration are high on the agenda. Sports clubs are considered important settings for promoting integration. This notion is reflected in national and international policy documents. This study focuses on how leaders in a non-profit sports club, operating in a community where a majority have a migrant background, work with the stated goal of promoting integration. The aim of this study is to explore how leaders interpret and negotiate their explicit assignment to promote integration and counteract segregation and how they try to implement strategies to reach these goals and also to explore how participants experience the sports club's activities related to aspects of integration. The study takes an ethnographic approach with participant observations and interviews. The results indicate that the leaders’ work in terms of integration was related to negotiating diversity, norms, rules and language. Both leaders and participants highlight how the activities enhance feelings of trust despite racism in society and how the leaders worked to create relationships and to make the activities into safe spaces. Whether this work contributes to integration is, however, debatable and the leaders emphasised inclusion as their main strategy and goal.

In this paper, we describe and critically reflect on the possibilities and challenges of developing and implementing an empowerment-based school intervention regarding healthy food and physical activity (PA), involving participants from a Swedish multicultural area characterized by low socioeconomic status. The 2-year intervention was continually developed and implemented, as a result of cooperation and shared decision making among researchers and the participants. All 54 participants were seventh graders, and the intervention comprised health coaching, health promotion sessions and a Facebook group. We experienced that participants valued collaborating with peers, and that they took responsibility in codeveloping and implementing the intervention. Participants expressed feeling listened to, being treated with respect and taken seriously. However, we also experienced a number of barriers that challenged our initial intentions of aiding participation and ambition to support empowerment. Moreover, it was challenging to use structured group health coaching and to work with goal-setting in groups of participants with shared, and sometimes competing, goals, wishes and needs related to food and PA. Successful experiences from this intervention was the importance of acquiring a broad and deep understanding of the context and participants, being open to negotiating, as well as adjusting the intervention. © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved., The study received funding from the Department of Food and Nutrition, and Sport Science at the University of Gothenburg and the Swedish Nutrition Foundation.

Purpose: This study aimed to describe adolescents’ experiences of participating in a health-promoting school-based intervention regarding food and physical activity, with a focus on empowering aspects. Method: The school was located in a urban disadvantaged community in Sweden, characterized by poorer self-reported health and lower life expectancy than the municipality average. Focus group interviews with adolescents (29 girls, 20 boys, 14–15 years) and their teachers (n = 4) were conducted two years after intervention. Data were categorized using qualitative content analysis. Results: A theme was generated, intersecting with all the categories: Gaining control over one’s health: deciding, trying, and practicing together, in new ways, using reflective tools. The adolescents appreciated influencing the components of the intervention and collaborating with peers in active learning activities such as practicing sports and preparing meals. They also reported acquiring new health information, that trying new activities was inspiring, and the use of pedometers and photo-food diaries helped them reflect on their health behaviours. The adolescents’ experiences were also echoed by their teachers. Conclusions: To facilitate empowerment and stimulate learning, health-promotion interventions targeting adolescents could enable active learning activities in groups, by using visualizing tools to facilitate self-reflection, and allowing adolescents to influence intervention activities., Funding: Department of Food and Nutrition and Sport Science at the University of Gothenburg & Swedish Nutrition Foundation, How-to-Act?

This study aimed to illuminate factors that undermine the healthy habits of adolescents from a multicultural community with low socioeconomic status (S.E.S.) in Sweden with regard to physical activity (P.A.) and food, as stated in their own voices. Adolescents (n = 53, 12–13 y/o) were recruited from one school situated in a multicultural community characterized by low S. E.S. Embracing an interpretive approach, 10 focus-group interviews were conducted to produce data for the study. The focus-group interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using qualitative content analysis. The analysis resulted in two major themes: (1) the availability of temptations is large, and support from the surroundings is limited; and (2) norms and demands set the agenda. The adolescents’ voices illuminate a profound awareness and the magnitude of tempting screen-based activities as undermining their P.A. and healthy food habits. Moreover, several gender boundaries were highlighted as undermining girls’ P.A. and healthy food habits. The adolescents’ stories illuminated that it is difficult for them, within their environment, to establish healthy habits with regard to P.A. and food. To facilitate the adolescents’ healthy habits, we suggest that support from family, friends, the school, and society at large is essential., How-to-Act?

The recent international crises has brought about the largest movements of refugees since World War II. There is a need for constructive strategies to manage the challenges the comprehensive migration imposes on society's ability to integrate new residents. Research highlights the central role of civil society organizations to create trust, social networks and civic engagement, i.e. basic conditions for a democratic society (Putnam, 2013; Wijkström, 2012). International research also shows that civil society organizations and the voluntary sector can have a compensating function for economically and socially disadvantaged groups (Field, 2005; Portes & Rumbaut; Zhou & Kim, 2006). Many of these organizations have an ambition to welcome newcomers and offer a social milieu and a meaningful leisure time. Sports are often considered as contributing to the inclusion in society of marginalized groups (Misener & Mason, 2006; Schulenkorf & Edwards, 2012). There is a well-established notion that participation in sports promotes positive identity construction, social inclusion and education for democratic citizenship (cf. Donnelly & Coakley, 2002). However, there is little scientific evidence that sport has the potential to fulfill this role, In Sweden a strong emphasis has been put on the role of sports clubs to actively strengthen democratic values and equality. Different governments have provided extensive funding for this purpose, but also for the purpose of including children and youth independent of who they are and were they come from. However, there is little scientific evidence that sport clubs and their activities has the potential to fulfill this role in the community and there is very little systematically developed knowledge of how sporting activities and programs should be designed to achieve positive social outcomes (Rich, Misener & Dubeau, 2015). It is the leaders in the clubs that have the challenging task of ensuring that the objective

Despite increasing socioeconomic inequalities in the health and well-being of adolescents, the voices of adolescents in disadvantaged communities regarding facilitators of physical activity (PA) have received relatively little attention. In response, the purpose of this study was to illuminate what adolescents in a multicultural community of low socioeconomic status (SES) in Sweden convey concerning facilitators of PA. Adolescents (n = 53, aged 12–13 years) were recruited from a school in a multicultural community of low SES in Sweden. Following an interpretive approach, 10 focus group interviews were conducted to produce data for a qualitative content analysis. When the adolescents mentioned PA, they mostly referred to spontaneous PA rather than organized PA, and expressed that they enjoyed their PA engagement, which they stated was promoted by the variation of PA, available options for PA, their physical skills, and the presence of peers. They reported that social support from family and friends facilitated their PA, and they offered several suggestions regarding how the school environment could better support their PA. From the perspective of self-determination theory (SDT), the results stress the importance of facilitating intrinsic motivation with a supportive PA environment in which adolescents can satisfy their needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland, How-to-Act?