ABSTRACT
The word precarity connects temporary, insecure, poorly paid, and sporadic work practices and their effects to health and wellbeing. Precarious work makes workers and their families ill. The prevalence of precarity has been rising. Poverty, mental health, gender inequality and discrimination, disruptive pupil behaviour, and violence are each referents of precarity. Such is the prevalence of precarity, a new social class has emerged, called the precariat. Since precarity is becoming increasingly prevalent, physical education teachers are likely to be teaching children who are suffering its ill effects. Physical educators may have some benefits to offer young people living in precarity. Participation in regular physical activity in order to become physically competent and literate is valuable and important for all young people. From a salutogenic perspective, the physically active life is a resource that assists young people to remain healthy. Social justice pedagogies are required to enable physical educators to respond to precarity, and physical educators will need to reinvent themselves to practice these critical pedagogies. The task in this book is to articulate how critical pedagogies can embed practices in schools that are inclusive, fair, and equitable and that empower young people living in precarity.
