Pedagogical narratives of Physical Education in times of precarity

Abstract

There has been an increasing prevalence of mental health and wellbeing issues among children and young people for over two decades in the UK, exacerbated by the Pandemic, but sure to endure beyond it due to an exponential increase in the gig economy. The uncertainties and instability gig work introduces to people’s lives makes them unwell, and creates precarity. The question is how should physical education respond to growing precarity? The dominant narratives of physical education during the past 50 years have been preparation for the coming leisure society (that never arrived) and the fight against obesity. While a risk prevention approach to physical education-as- health promotion may remain important, lesson based on Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity may not be what children and young people need who are suffering with mental illness. I advocate for pedagogies of affect informed by salutogenesis as an appropriate response to precarity. I finish with a brief review of the ways in which precarity has been used within the physical education and sport pedagogy literature and argue that the concept, despite its great importance, has yet to cut through to scholars in our field.