Beyond Whiteness: Constructing Identities Through an Interactive Multimedia Body Curriculum in Secondary Urban Physical Education

• In Event: Creating Pedagogical Spaces for Social Justice Issues in Physical Education

Abstract

As a result of global health imperatives, while ethnic minority young people are increasingly defined as bodies “at risk”, “at disadvantage”, marked as less fit than the white “norm”, there is very little consideration of the ways they construct meanings around their bodies and negotiate the pressure of both healthism and media narratives for the perfect body. The purpose of this participatory visual research was to incorporate a Body Curriculum into a fitness unit in secondary schools and to conduct research on the extent to which this curriculum enhanced students’ embodied learning. Students’ Glogs, photos, and narratives offer an authentic snapshot of culturally relevant youth exercises in an urban context; a view from the “Other” side of today’s media representations.

Authors

• Laura Azzarito, Columbia University

• Risto Marttinen, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Mara Simon, Trevor Day School

• Rebecca Markiewicz, Teachers College, Columbia University