Curriculum Studies in Health and Physical Education

Celebrating the Joy and Power of Games and Play in Health and Physical Education

With this Special Issue, we seek to bring together diverse voices, knowledges, and theoretical and empirical research that celebrate - and critically examine - the joyful, dynamic, and transformational potential of games and play in Health and Physical Education (HPE). While games and play have long been a visible feature of HPE, their educational significance is often taken for granted, reduced to skill acquisition or competitive performance goals, or marginalized within increasingly instrumental, health-driven, and accountability-oriented curricula (Casey, & Quennerstedt, 2015; Kirk, 2017; Sæther et al., 2025). In contemporary contexts shaped by performativity, standardization, and measurable outcomes, the deeper educational, affective, and relational possibilities of play(ing) risk being overlooked (Aartun et al., 2023; Dania, 2025; de Vries, 2021; Jerebine et al., 2024).

Recent scholarship across education and childhood studies has renewed attention to play as central to holistic development, wellbeing, creativity, democratic participation, and meaning making (Holst, 2017; Mo et al., 2024; Sahlberg & Doyle, 2019; Sanders & Coakley, 2021). At the same time, critical work in HPE has illuminated how dominant sport and performance-oriented practices may contribute to disengagement, inequity, and narrow constructions of ability, gender, and health (e.g., Aartun et al., 2020; Borgen et al., 2020; Gerdin, 2016). These tensions make it timely and necessary to reconsider what games, and play can do in HPE and for whom.

Grounded in scholarship that views play as socially situated, embodied, and culturally meaningful, this Special Issue will explore how games and playful pedagogies can enrich curriculum, inspire meaningful learning, and challenge narrow, performance-driven orientations that often dominate HPE practice. Rather than treating play as a methodological add-on or a motivational hook, we position it as serious curricular work: a site where identities are negotiated, relationships are formed, norms are reproduced or disrupted, and educational purposes are enacted. In this sense, games and play are not perceived as neutral activities, but as powerful pedagogical spaces through which HPE is lived and experienced.

While the call for submissions is open to all, our intention is to gather diverse perspectives from multiple contexts to provide a deeper understanding of how play-based pedagogies can re-shape educational policies, practices, and outcomes, reclaiming play as both a fundamental educational right and a powerful curricular tool for meaningful learning in HPE.

References

Aartun, I., Walseth, K., Standal, Ø. F., & Kirk, D. (2020). Pedagogies of embodiment in physical education – a literature review. Sport, Education and Society 27(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2020.1821182

Aartun, I., Lambert , K., & Walseth, K. (2023). How pupils’ playfulness creates possibilities for pleasure and learning in physical education. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, https://doi.org/10.1080/17408989.2023.2235372

Borgen, J. S., Moen, K., Hallås, M., Løndal, B. O., Moen, K., Gjølme, KM, & G, E. (2020). Problems created by the (un)clear boundaries between physical education and physical activity health initiatives in schools, Sport. Education and Society, 26(3), 239–252. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2020.1722090

Casey, A., & Quennerstedt, M. (2015). “I just remember rugby”: Re-membering Physical Education as More Than a Sport. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 86(1), 40–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/02701367.2014.977430

Dania, A. (2025). Playfulness as pedagogy in the classroom. In Dania, A., & Impedovo, M. (Eds) Affectivity as Pedagogy in the Classroom (pp. 103-113). Routledge.

de Vries, J. P. (2021). Conceptualising physical playfulness. International Journal of Play, 10(3), 243–260. https://doi.org/10.1080/21594937.2021.1959229

Gerdin, G. (2016). A ‘culture of everyone doing it’ and ‘playing games’ – discourses of pleasure in boys’ physical education. Asia-Pacific Journal of Health, Sport and Physical Education, 7(1), 55–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/18377122.2016.1145428

Holst, J. (2017). The Dynamics of play – back to the basics of playing. International Journal of Play, 6(1), 85–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/21594937.2017.1288383

Jerebine, A., Eyre, E. L., Lander, N., Duncan, M. J., & Barnett, L. M. (2024). Forces at play: A qualitative study of risk aversion, policy and decision making for children's physically active play in schools. Health & Place, 90, 103373. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2024.103373

Kirk, D. (2017). Teaching games in physical education: towards a pedagogical model. Revista portuguesa de Ciências do Desporto, S1A, 17-26. https://doi.org/10.5628/rpcd.17.S1A.17

Mo, W., Saibon, J.B., LI, Y. et al. Effects of game-based physical education program on enjoyment in children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Public Health 24, 517 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18043-6

Sæther, S., Borgen, J. S., & Leirhaug, P. E. (2025). Structuring play in physical education. Sport, Education and Society, 30(1), 88–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2023.2283782

Sahlberg, P., & Doyle, W. (2019). Let the children play: How more play will save our schools and help children thrive. Oxford University Press.

Sanders, B., & Coakley, J. (2021). Leveling the playing field: Investing in grassroots sports as the best bet for sustainable development. In J. Maguire, K. Liston, & M. Falcous (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of globalization and sport (pp. 529–555). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56854-0_24