ABSTRACT
The National Curriculum for Physical Education (NCPE) constituted a moment of some significance in the history of physical education in England and Wales. The principles of equity and equality might be established much more firmly in the official discourse of the subject, in time infusing the actions of teacher educators and physical education teachers in schools. Emancipatory principles appeared to have been on the verge of acceptance by the profession and established as key and defining elements in the curriculum of physical education. Theorists of postmodernity claim that trends in consumerism, mass culture and a decline of traditional institutions are bringing about major cultural reorientations, the end of an era–a move from the modern to the postmodern society–which require new concepts and new theories. If 'the body' is increasingly privileged in the culture of postmodernity, then the process of education may have an increasingly important role to play particularly in the decisions children take concerning their own bodies.
