ABSTRACT
In recent years, sport organisations in the UK and internationally have increasingly been called upon to address ‘equal opportunities issues’ and specifically to consider the degree to which they have recognised and provided for the needs of all individuals in communities. As we will see in this chapter, initiatives forthcoming from governments and sporting bodies have approached and interpreted the notion of ‘equal opportunities’ in various ways. In physical education, equal opportunities has similarly become established as ‘an issue’ to be addressed by policy-makers and practitioners alike. In England and Wales the development of a National Curriculum was heralded as a significant step towards, if not a guarantee of, equal opportunities in education. The introduction of the National Curriculum established that it was a statutory requirement for all state (i.e. government funded) schools to provide all children with a broad and balanced curriculum that would include physical education (see DES, 1989). However, there was open recognition that the implementation of the National Curriculum for Physical Education (NCPE) would see children in different schools experiencing a different range of activities, taught in different ways. The curriculum, teaching and learning in physical education would certainly not be the same in all schools, nor for all children in any school. The extent to which the introduction of the NCPE would facilitate or precipitate advances in physical education in relation to the matters of equality and equity remained to be seen, as statutory requirements were interpreted and implemented in various ways in schools throughout England and Wales.
