ABSTRACT
The Health and Physical Education curriculum in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) provides a unique contribution to the discussion of global re-design of Physical Education. In 1999, the subjects of “health education” and “physical education” were combined into one academic subject (HPE) in the national curriculum (MOE 1999a). One purpose of the NZ “re-design” of the HPE curriculum was to challenge the “traditional fitness, team sport, and biomedical focus” that dominated HPE practices. In particular, the work of Culpan (1998) helped to shift the emphasis of HPE onto the well-being of the students, of other people, and society more broadly. This chapter presents a HPE curriculum aligned to a socio-critical and socio-historical approach to education. The distinctive strengths of our curriculum include its interdisciplinary nature, the community-based approach it takes, and the social justice efforts it privileges. We conclude that NZ provides a dynamic example of HPE reform and re-design in-process and offers an important example to an international audience.
