ABSTRACT
For mainland Chinese students, studying abroad in the universities of ‘the West’ is a common and realistic aspiration. Little research has investigated how these students experience and engage in physical education and physical activity (PE/PA) courses. This chapter establishes a conceptual framework to better understand participation and engagement in PE/PA. The intent is to increase participation, improving comprehensive health and wellness on campus. We review literature on students’ physical activity and participation in PE/PA courses, focusing on international students, and present a critique of dominant conceptual approaches to the topic grounded in Bourdieu’s concept of bodily hexis. Dominant approaches rely on an essentialist concept of culture, whereby ‘traditional’ pedagogies grounded in cultural tradition impact capacity and desire to engage in PE/PA. We posit a more nuanced understanding of corporeal reticence that considers how early-life experiences, ‘stored’ as bodily hexis, impact student and instructor experience of PE/PA. These conceptual resources may help PE/PA researchers and course instructors account for a fuller range of students’ social, economic, cultural, and geographical spaces of origin. This may provide a stronger foundation for pedagogical experimentation that might lead to greater inclusion of international students and, with this, increased health and wellness on post-secondary campuses.
