ABSTRACT
At first glance, the title of the book is explicit: it looks at young people and the, possibly ordinary, place that physical activity has in their daily lives. However, as this book reveals, for some young people physical activity can bring them regular joy, freedom and sense of accomplishment, while for others, physical activity takes the form of paid work or transport that must be undertaken every day. For yet others, physical activity represents the constant work that must be done on their bodies, in ways that are obligatory and not always pleasurable, to maintain the ‘balance’ – energy in, energy out – that promises a healthy, slim body. Further, as there are changes in young people’s everyday circumstances – a change of school, shifting house, new friends, a part-time job, an injured limb, homework pressures – so too does young people’s physical activity participation shift. Curiously, we titled the book before seeing Kenway et al.’s (2006: 170) use of the words ‘everyday knowledges’ which underpin boys’ ‘reflective self-construction’ that is ‘situational, temporal and spatial’. We too are interested in young people’s reflective self-construction as they take up and resist physical activity each day.
