Social media can become a site of public pedagogy (Rich, E., & Miah, A. (2014). Understanding digital health as public pedagogy: A critical framework. Societies, 4(2), 296–315. doi:10.3390/soc4020296) through which young people learn about health and fitness. Photo and video-sharing social networks are emerging as sites of media practices through which images of the perfect fit body circulate, popularly known as ‘fitspiration’ media. Our research examines how girls and young women negotiate contemporary discourses around body, health and fitness circulating through Instagram and the subjectivities such technology enables. We draw on participatory and collaborative research with young women from three Spanish Secondary schools who each engaged with exercise-related content on Instagram and who self-defined as physically active. Focus groups and semi-structured interviews explored participants’ uses, meanings and influences of this digital content over their embodiment and subjectivities. Through the concept of ‘postfeminist biopedagogy’, we articulate the learning processes that girls experience as they engage with media about ‘fit’ female bodies on Instagram. This involves a series of pedagogical micro practices through which girls learn about the health and fitness subject and which bring together a postfeminist sensibility (Gill, R. (2007). Postfeminist media culture: Elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(2), 147–166. doi:10.1177/1367549407075898), neoliberal notions of the self and discourses of health consumption. A postfeminist biopedagogy (Wright, J. (2009). Biopower, biopedagogies and the obesity epidemic. In J. Wright, & V. Harwood (Eds.), Biopolitics and the ‘obesity epidemic’: Governing bodies (pp. 1–14). New York, NY: Routledge) instructs and regulates girls’ bodies and health subjectivities through a language of choice, empowerment and health although, at the same time, framing exercise as disciplined work to achieve the normative body. Although participants criticized such representation of the perfect body, they considered these normative pressures as necessary to ‘successful’ identities in postfeminist times. Our analysis reveals how some young women learn about exercise as ‘aesthetic labour’ through the biopedagogies circulating on Instagram, with continual work upon the body associated with performing subjectivities which are confident, happy and powerful. We conclude by exploring the implications of our findings for Physical and Health Education and young women’s wellbeing.

Online social interaction has become integral to contemporary social life, adding new dimensions to how young people learn, interact, and perceive themselves and one another. This paper presents theoretical insights from a year-long ethnographic study within a Scottish secondary school, where participant observation and qualitative interviews were used to explain pupils’ informal social relationships. Here, pupils aged 11–18 constructed and negotiated a hyper-surveillanced social space within which many became (or strived to become) visible and ‘known’ amongst others and where online presentations of self were highly important. This facilitated a celebrity-esque culture amongst the pupil population whereby pupils learnt from and emulated macro celebrity culture and often framed social interactions as entertainment. Central to these practices, was a continual desire to ‘make gains in distinction’ by demonstrating high social status amongst peers. The paper explores the resulting implications for teaching, learning and pupil wellbeing within contemporary educational environments.

Drawing on the conceptual frameworks of Bourdieu and postfeminism, this article analyses extant tensions between young women’s gendered habitus and the health-related learning spaces of Physical Education (PE) and Instagram. We draw on data from a two-phase qualitative research project with thirty-seven young women (aged 15–17) from three secondary schools in Spain who self-defined as physically active and engaging with exercise content on Instagram. Data obtained through focus groups and semi-structured interviews reveal how these young women’s subjectivities are formed through negotiating the gender ‘rules of the game’ within these key pedagogical fields. Notably, most participants were critical of their learning in PE, which mainly remains a traditional masculine field. By contrast, they valued Instagram as an engaging space in which to learn about fitness to transform their bodies toward the feminine ideal. This involved a constant process of self-optimization, including the development of the ‘right’ mental dispositions, fitting strongly with their gendered habitus. Within this paper, we have developed the concept of ‘postfeminist habitus’ to explain the participants’ engagements with health-related content on Instagram, which through language of choice and empowerment, disciplined the young women to achieve the normative body as a marker of success. We argue that while there are notably different patterns of engagement with PE and Instagram, in both spaces there is evidence of symbolic violence that reproduces the gender order. We conclude by suggesting changes that might make PE a more meaningful and hybrid learning space for young women.

This paper describes my practitioner inquiry as a newly qualified teacher, initially used as a form of teacher learning, but ultimately became the reason I remained in the physical education (PE) teaching profession. In Scotland, early-career PE teachers are encouraged to embody the role of teacher–researcher and pursue Career-Long Professional Learning (CLPL) opportunities that nourish creative and enquiring dispositions. However, it is also understood that failure to integrate into political school structures, successfully managing workload and relationships, negotiating curricular content and aims and becoming a competent classroom manager can lead to dissatisfaction and attrition. Supported by critical friends, I use narrative inquiry to explore the contexts and people that shaped my learning during my initial years in the profession and factors contributing to my professional teaching identity. Through this process, I began to understand my professional knowledge landscape as an arena of contested stories that bump, intertwine and converge. This understanding was important for me to feel comfortable as a teacher–researcher and in my decision to remain in the profession. These findings reflect the capacity for growth inherent in a narrative understanding of experience and potential for sustaining PE teacher–researcher identities via research-based practitioner inquiry. Those within Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) should consider the application of narrative identity work to encourage early-career PE teachers to reflect on the personal, social, and contextual aspects of identity construction in their lives, with the hope they can effectively navigate the shifting landscape of twenty-first century PE.

This research examines the masculine identities and experiences of males within the subject of PE. Specifically, it examines the masculine identities of two groups of boys in the Scottish secondary physical education (PE) context: Secondary 1 (S1: age 12–13) and Secondary 4 (S4: age 15–16). Drawing from Hegemonic Masculinity Theory and Inclusive Masculinity Theory, this research set out to explore how masculine identities co-exist and develop within the same context, building on previous research that has examined masculine identities in the Scottish PE context. To do so, guided by key principles of ethnography and using qualitative methods, S1 and S4 boys were observed in their PE lessons for a period of 3 months. In the third month, four pupils in each class volunteered to take part in semi-structured group interviews. The results from our thematic analysis indicated that both groups performed different masculine identities. The S1 boys that were observed and interviewed adopted inclusive masculinities, where they seemed able to display a range of gendered behaviours without fear of stigmatisation or marginalisation. Conversely, the majority of the S4 boys observed and all of the boys that were interviewed embodied an exclusive form of masculinity, using their bodies to allow them to enact a range of masculine behaviours while maintaining their superior position in the social hierarchy. This article highlights the need for more research into the construction of masculine identities as pupils navigate PE and school. We also suggest that teachers can be more pro-active in maintaining broad, inclusive and critical conceptions of PE as pupils progress from the junior to the senior years.

Objective: This paper forms part of a DigihealthPE project in which we have been working with physical education (PE) teachers to co-create critical and embodied digital health pedagogies. As part of the project, we invited PE teachers to mind map their personal engagements with digital health technologies. We aimed to explore the potential openings and opportunities (and limitations) within these maps for critical thinking and action. Method: Data were generated during a workshop with 12 PE teachers in Scotland. Informed by new materialism, we focus on the human and non-human factors and intra-actions evident within six narrative portraits generated from teachers’ mind maps. Results: Our findings suggest that teachers were engaging complexly and extensively with digital health technologies, which we considered an opening for further critical work. Importantly, experiences of strong (negative) affect had the potential to transform engagements with digital health technologies. Conclusion: We conclude by exploring how the process of mind mapping helped us to see further opportunities for supporting teachers to engage critically with digital health technologies. We also argue that new materialist-informed critical practices in education may have transformative potential for helping teachers and pupils to engage critically with the moving body, technology and health.