The Enactment of Social Justice in HPE Practice: How Context(s) Comes to Matter

For more than 40 years, health and physical education (HPE) academics in universities and teacher education colleges have drawn attention to issues of social justice specific to the context of PE and advocated for teachers in fields, gymnasiums and other physical activity spaces to do a better job of promoting more equitable outcomes for all students. Building on this advocacy, in the late 1990s, countries such as Sweden, Norway and New Zealand designed HPE curricula that address social justice. However, limited research has focused specifically on the enactment of social justice in HPE practice. Drawing on a larger international project involving Sweden, Norway and New Zealand the aim of this article is therefore to explore the constitution of social justice pedagogies across these three different HPE contexts and more specifically how HPE teaching practice may be understood from regulative, normative and cultural perspectives on social justice. The data reported on in this paper were generated from educational acts, curriculum documents, observations of HPE lessons in each of the three countries and follow-up teacher interviews. In order to analyse the data, we employed Scott's (2008. Institutions and organizations: Ideas and interests (3rd ed). Sage) institutional theory to further understand and discuss the enactment of social justice across the three different countries in HPE practice. In our representation and analysis of the findings we draw attention to how social justice pedagogies are informed differently by institutionalised governing systems and therefore they may be enacted differently by teachers in different societies. In particular, we highlight the influence of (i) regulative; (ii) normative; (iii) cultural-cognitive elements on practice. We conclude by pointing out the complex interplay between regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements that both enable and constrain HPE teachers' enactments of social justice in HPE practice.

Keywords: Physical education; health; social justice; equity; institutional theory

For more than 40 years, health and physical education (HPE[1]) academics in universities and teacher education colleges have drawn attention to issues of social justice specific to the context of PE and advocated for teachers in fields, gymnasiums and other physical activity spaces to do a better job of promoting more equitable outcomes for all students (Dowling et al., [13]; Evans, [17]; Philpot, [45]; Tinning, [66]). Building on this advocacy, in the late 1990s, countries such as Sweden, Norway and New Zealand designed HPE curricula that address social justice as part of this school subject. For example, in Sweden and Norway this meant addressing gender equality as part of the HPE curriculum while in New Zealand the addressing of social justice largely focused on improving the outcomes of its Māori (indigenous) population. Despite education systems in most western countries like Sweden, Norway and New Zealand being built on the values of democracy and equity, the impact of such policies remains elusive. Although, the overall health status of people in Sweden and Norway is good, ensuring positive health outcomes for all of its increasingly diverse population is a profound challenge in both of these countries (Norwegian Ministry, [40]; Official Reports of the Swedish Government, [42]) and in New Zealand, Māori people continue be over-represented in most negative economic, educational and social indices (Poata-Smith, [48]). Research also continues to show how schooling and HPE practices in these countries contribute to a sense of exclusion and that some students feel that the subject is not for them (Barker et al., [3]; Gerdin & Larsson, [22]; Säfvenbom et al., [50]; Schenker, [51]). Notwithstanding the importance of these findings, much of this research has focused on critiquing and highlighting socially unjust HPE practices. The project Education for Equitable Health Outcomes – The Promise of School Health and Physical Education (EDUHEALTH) therefore sought to identify examples of the enactment of socially just HPE practices. It aimed to contribute to our understanding of how teachers of HPE (can) teach for social justice by examining and reporting on their teaching practices.

In the EDUHEALTH project, a research team of eight HPE teacher educators and researchers from Sweden, Norway and New Zealand, set out to explore how HPE teachers taught for and about social justice. The scope of this investigation quickly broadened as we recognised that the teaching practices were enabled and constrained by aspects such as personal and professional knowledge and cultural values and norms. HPE teachers have their own personal and professional beliefs and experiences that condition their teaching practice (González-Calvo et al., [25]). In addition, society's intentions for children's education and learning as articulated in educational policies and curriculum documents are realised in their teaching (Bernstein, [5]). What is highlighted within the framework of teachers' actions therefore must be understood in a broader social context. What constitutes pedagogies for social justice needs to include recognition of the factors that both explicitly and implicitly enable and/or constrain social justice pedagogies (Schenker et al., [52]).

According to Tinning ([66]), teaching for social justice cannot be conceptualised as a single pedagogy that can be enacted without regard for the learning context. Social justice is enacted in countries influenced by factors such as laws, norms, cultural and cognitive conditions that interact in complex ways to construct social meanings and have significance for the carried-out teaching practices. To understand teachers' actions and practices related to social justice in three different countries with their varying contexts, it is necessary to take into consideration the interplay between various factors. In order to do so, in this article we draw on Scott's ([55]) institutional theory to explore how 'regulative', 'normative' and 'cultural-cognitive' elements are constitutive of social justice pedagogies across these three different HPE contexts. We start by briefly discussing our conceptualisation of social justice and equity before introducing the three different contexts of the study and the theoretical framework informing this article, Scott's ([55]) 'institutional theory'.

When comparing the education systems in Sweden, Norway and New Zealand in relation to their focus on social justice and equity, there are both similarities and differences, which can be traced to the historical and political context of each of these countries. Below, we will briefly summarise the foundations of these educational systems in relation to issues of social justice and equity since they, in turn, influence the regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements in each country, but we begin with a few comments about the concepts of equity and social justice as they are central to our study.

Although, there is a common misconception that equity and equality mean the same thing and that they can be used interchangeably, the difference between them is crucial. In short, equality means evenly allocating the same amount of resources to all students whereas equity is about recognising that there are some students who may require more resources to give them the same opportunity to be as successful as other students (Evans & Davies, [18]). A focus on equity in schooling is therefore about removing oppression and discrimination from the classroom (Stidder & Hayes, [58]) and striving for social justice. What constitutes social justice is highly contestable (Randall & Robinson, [49]) but in our project we have drawn on Bell's ([4]) conceptualisation of social justice as both a process and a goal where the process involves a critical examination and challenge of institutional, cultural and individual oppression with the goal of equal distribution of resources and social responsibility. In the context of this article we are interested in how equity can be achieved through the enactment of social justice in HPE practice. Social justice practices or pedagogies in HPE are 'those in which HPE teachers seek to recognise and act on social inequities rather than further marginalise groups of students due to e.g. gender, sexuality, ethnicity or socio-economic standing' (Schenker et al., [52], p. 127), with the goal of greater equality of outcomes for all students.

In Sweden, the discussion about social justice can be traced back to the 1940s, in connection to the reforms of the Swedish school system into a 'school for all'. Equality was a guiding principle in promoting the development of the country and strengthening solidarity in the transformation into a welfare society (Edmark et al., [14]). Every child was equally entitled to an education, regardless of where they lived or their parents' socio-economic status. Everyone should have the same chances to succeed and to further their education. In 1990, state responsibility for education was diminished with municipalities given responsibility for organising compulsory schooling (age 7–16). The 1990 reform also meant that publicly funded private schools ('free schools') without tuition fees and 'free school choice' were allowed (Edmark et al., [14]). The number of ´free schools' increased from 60 (1992) to 820 (2014) (Edmark et al., [14]). In the 2000s, school achievement gaps have increased with socio-economically disadvantaged students and students with foreign background gaining lower grades compared to other students (OECD, [41]; Svennberg, [60]).

In Norway, education has been important in building a democratic welfare state. Education 'for all' has been a policy for a long period of time and can be traced all the way back to the General Education Act of 1739 which stated that all children, irrespective of their parents' social position and class, should get a basic education. Few countries spend more money on education than Norway. Norway has a public unified school system built on democratic values and equity (Arnesen & Lundahl, [2]). It is free of charge (including tertiary study) and there is equal access to education for all. Similar to Sweden, in the 1990s, the education system became more decentralised system, with local autonomy of education and freedom for municipalities and schools to choose how to organise education within the frame of the national curriculum. Unlike Sweden, free choice of a school has only been introduced to a limited extent (Helgøy & Homme, [27]). According to Møller and Skedsmo ([34]), the education system, despite neoliberal reforms, still emphasises values as equity, equal access to education and democracy. Nevertheless, research show that gender, social background and immigrant background have significant impact on academic outcomes (Arnesen & Lundahl, [2]; OECD, [41]).

In a New Zealand context, social justice in education is closely linked to the colonial history of domination by the European colonisers and corresponding marginalisation of the Māori people within New Zealand (Anuru, [1]). The Education Act from 1877 states there should be a free, compulsory and secular education system for all children aged 5–15. One important vision of the New Zealand school is that 'Māori and Pākehā recognise each other as full treaty partners, and in which all cultures are valued for the contributions they bring' (Ministry of Education, [33], p. 8). One effort to approach social justice issues in New Zealand can be seen in the New Zealand Curriculum viewing English-medium schools and the parallel curriculum document 'Te Marautanga o Aotearoa' that concerns Māori-medium schools as equally important. According to the vision, the two documents will help schools give effect to the partnership that is at the core of the nation's founding document, Te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi (Ministry of Education, [33]). Despite these social justice approaches, the inequalities for children from low-income homes have increased, particularly for Māori children have increased (Wylie, [72]) and indeed, New Zealand is a society that has one of the largest disparities between rich and poor of all OECD countries (Keely, [30]).

In each of the countries there are formal structures regulating schools and their practices. Although schools are regulated by educational acts, national curricula and other policy documents, teaching is shaped by cultures that consist of traditions, values and norms that constitute beliefs about what is regarded as relevant and useful knowledge. These cultures are produced and reproduced and set limitations for what is possible to do and what is not (Kvalbein, [31]). This means that issues of social justice that may be articulated in official curriculum and policy documents may not be realised in teaching practice due to the 'slippage' from policy to practice (Penney & Evans, [44]), however, it could also be the other way around, issues of social justice beyond what is made explicit in the official curriculum and policy documents may be addressed in teaching practices because of the values and beliefs of individual teachers (see e.g. Deerness, [10]).

To draw attention to this complexity and give examples of how social justice pedagogies may be enacted in different societies, we have drawn on Scott's ([55]) 'institutional theory'. Scott ([55]) defines an institution to be 'comprised of regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements that together with associated activities and resources provide stability and meaning to social life' (p. 48). These three elements, or what Scott ([55]) also refers to as 'institutional pillars' constitute the system of meanings, norms, values, beliefs and rules in which all institutions are embedded. The content of these pillars may change over time, but each pillar is always present. Further, although researchers often emphasise one pillar over the others (Scott, [55]), all three exist at the same time within an institutional environment, with varying degrees of influence (Scott, [53]). Thus, an analysis of institutional pillars and how these interact can help shed light on the enabling or constraining of HPE teachers' actions. By drawing on Scott's theorising, we are particularly interested in how system of rules, norms, values and collective and individual perceptions interplay and operate within HPE practice in that way promote social justice, or in other words, the interplay between what must be done (e.g. laws and regulations/rules), what should be done (e.g. curriculum documents and course syllabi) and what people (e.g. HPE teachers and students) think should be done.

The regulative elements provide a written and/or unwritten framework for what must be done in forms of law, rules and structures and aims to regulate or constrain certain behaviours (Scott, [55]). The emphasis is on the rules being legally sanctioned and followed as stipulated, for example, in a country's national educational act (Scott, [55]). Like other institutions in society, educational acts and schooling are influenced both by historical and cultural contexts and global trends (Lawn & Grek, [32]). These regulations in each country are, in turn, translated into normative elements. The normative elements are about obligations and binding expectations based on core values and beliefs but also goals or objectives and how to achieve them (Scott, [55]), as articulated in, for instance, curriculum and course syllabi documents. To varying degrees, these curriculum documents provide a framework that shapes how the teaching in schools (e.g. in HPE) should be done. Curriculum documents are created in the nexus of the regulative elements in each country and the values and beliefs of the teachers in each context. The cultural-cognitive elements are about individual and subjective interpretations, shared beliefs and assumptions (e.g. what is generally taken for granted). They constitute the beliefs that underpin the teachers' interpretations and social constructions of the curriculum and in that way governs the teachers' actions and decisions (Scott, [55]). This means that social justice practices in HPE are influenced by the laws, the curriculum and the cultural-cognitive norms operating within each country. These three elements are internalised, and acted on, to different degrees by various actors and contexts (Scott, [55]) such as HPE teachers' actions for social justice (see Figure 1). It is important to note again that the three elements should not be seen as separate as they simultaneously influence and are influenced by, each other. Similarly, teachers' actions for social justice are both influenced by and influence these three elements.

PHOTO (COLOR): Figure 1. Elements that interact and influence (are influenced by) the HPE teachers' actions for social justice.

Few studies to date have employed Scott's institutional theory ([55]) to analyse teaching in schools, especially in HPE. In a study of early childhood education, Castro and Sipple ([8]) highlighted how regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements influence different actions and decisions through rules, educational practice, unstated expectations and taken-for-granted practice. They concluded that in early childhood education practice, local and normative forces are strong while the non-local and regulative influences are weak. In a study of the conditions that governs school's decision to offer PE in secondary schools in Tanzania, Kazungu ([29]) showed a conflict between how the schools' adopted the policy into practice, and the cultural-cognitive elements that also framed what the schools thought they should do. In implementing curriculum and policy agendas successfully into practice, there needs to be consistency among the regulations and the normative and cultural-cognitive aspects of the institution (Kazungu, [29]).

In this paper, we therefore draw on Scott's institutional theory to explore the regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive influential factors in HPE teachers' attempt to enact social justice pedagogies in HPE practice. We will now briefly describe the methodology used to generate the data reported for this paper (for a full explanation of this see Philpot et al., [46]a).

The data reported on in this paper were generated from educational acts, curriculum documents, observations of HPE lessons in each of the three countries and follow-up semi-structured teacher interviews. The specific focus of the observations was on identifying and describing pedagogies for social justice that were enacted in a 'practical' HPE lesson setting such as gymnasia, fields, courts and swimming pools where movement, physical activity, sport and games are central. In order to make sense of the different contexts, the use of a multi-national observer teams based on the proposition that local researchers familiar with context come with taken-for-granted assumptions about teachers' practices was a key principle that underpinned the data collection. The observations and insights provided by the 'outsiders' (Patton, [43]) were thus crucial in attempting to (re)interpret the observed HPE teaching practices for social justice (Gerdin et al., [23]). The research project methodology was informed by 'Critical Incident Technique' (CIT) (Tripp, [68]). CIT was developed to capture not only the actions, but also the thought processes and the perspectives of workers in relation to critical incidents. The logic of CIT rests on the assumption that not all actions ('incidents') are equally important, with some incidents being exponentially more important than others ('critical incidents'). Therefore, the strength of CIT is its high degree of focus on 'things that matter' in a particular activity (Viergever, [70]). In this study, we combined classroom observations with post-observation interviews to explore both the actions and the thought processes of HPE teachers with a narrow focus on critical incidents of teaching for equity and social justice. In this endeavour, the study was guided by the overall research question: how do HPE teachers' practices address social justice?

The study sample consisted of 13 teachers from four schools in Sweden, three schools in Norway and four schools in New Zealand. The teachers were selected through purposive sampling (Bryman, [7]). They were required to be qualified and fully registered teachers with a minimum of three years full time teaching experience. The teachers were familiar to the research team and selected as examples of HPE teachers known to foreground social justice in their teaching practice. The seven male and six female teachers ranged in age from 25–55 with between 3- and 25-years teaching experience. The observations were restricted to compulsory HPE classes with 13–15-year-old students in co-educational schools. Ten of the eleven schools were public schools. One school was a 'charter' school in a low socio-economic area in a small Swedish town. A multicultural school demographic was a common feature of many of the participants schools in all three countries.

The study was granted ethical approval in Sweden by the Regional Ethical Approval Committee in Linköping, in New Zealand by the University of Auckland, Human Participants Ethics Committee and in Norway by the Norwegian Centre for Data Research. All teacher names referred to in this paper are pseudonyms.

In order to analyse the data, we employed institutional theory (Scott, [55]) to further understand and discuss the enactment of social justice across the three different countries in HPE practice. This theory enables us to draw attention to the interplay between a range of influences on practice, and secondly to give examples how social justice pedagogies may act both differently and similarly across different school HPE contexts.

Schools and the school subject HPE can be seen, as institutions comprised of regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements that interact with each other and inform the teachers' actions related to social justice. According to Scott ([55]), all institutions are composed of various combinations of elements, but they vary among themselves and over time in regard to which elements are dominant. In the findings that follow, we provide examples of practices that connect with/are constituted by each of the three elements. In presenting the findings in this manner, we wish to demonstrate how all three elements impact on teachers' practices. However, in doing so, we need to signal that the linear presentation belies the complex and nuanced influence of regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements (Scott, [53]) on teachers' enactment of social justice in HPE practice.

As a state institution, schools are first and foremost formed by regulating acts. As indicated earlier in this paper, there are similarities and differences between Sweden, Norway and New Zealand in their regulating education acts. The legislation in all three countries is similar in regard to their focus on equity of access to public education. All three countries demonstrate a financial commitment to education through the provision of school funding above the OECD average (OECD, [41]).

In order to promote equity, the teacher needs knowledge about the regulative elements in relation to those who are positioned as the 'marginalised group(s)' in a certain area or society. Generally, in many countries marginalised groups can for instance be socio-economic, gender or physical ability related. As part of the policy to promote equity, the Education Act in Sweden as well as in Norway stipulates that all schools should be free from tuition and all students despite e.g. geographical residence or socio-economic status, should have equal right to education (The Government in Norway, [26]; The Swedish Government, 2010). This policy requires schools to ensure that all school subjects are accessible for all pupils with no extra fees or charges allowed. These policies extend from primary through to the provision of free tertiary study. In New Zealand, all students also have the right to free primary and secondary education, but the Education Act (New Zealand Ministry of Education, [36]) also allows schools to gain additional funding through school and course fees. These differences were noted by the research team. One of the critical incidents in Sweden recorded by a researcher from New Zealand noted:

At the beginning of the lesson one boy does not have a bike. It appears that all the others do. A teacher or teacher aid goes to the basement and gets one for him, so that he doesn't miss out ... (Observation notes, SWE)

This example highlights how the regulative elements in Sweden promote greater equity of access to education than experienced in New Zealand where it is more common for the cost of field trips to be passed on to the students and their families. Although education is free and school donations are voluntary, the regulatory elements in the most recent Education Act (New Zealand Ministry of Education, [36]) do little to ensure that individual schools provide equitable access to resources needed for learning.

In teaching for social justice, teachers need to identify marginalised groups of students. Regulative elements such as legislation can influence this process of identification. New Zealand's colonial history of domination by European colonisers and corresponding marginalisation of Māori people is unique in the study and Te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi which recognises the partnership between indigenous Māori and the Crown is an example of a regulative element that, in recent times, has provided a rationale for focusing on the educational achievement of Māori students. The principles of the treaty are explicit in National Education Goals (Education.govt.nz, [15]) which aims to increase 'participation and success by Māori through the advancement of Māori education initiatives, including education in Te Reo Māori' and in the national Standards for the Teaching Profession (Teaching Council Aotearoa New Zealand, [64]). These policies are based on Māori values such as whakamana, manaakitanga, pono, whanaungatanga and are explicit in stating standards against which teachers in New Zealand are appraised. However, we remain cognisant that teaching practices that start by recognising student ethnicity (or gender or socio-economic background) must act on the disadvantage of growing up in culture that does not align with traditional schooling practices (e.g. the system) rather than blaming parents, families and poverty (e.g. the student) (Thrupp, [65]).

The enactment of this legislation can be seen in the practice of the following teacher in New Zealand who converted Don Hellison's ([28]) Teaching for Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR) model in Te Reo (Māori language) and used the model as the basis for her lesson. In the post-lesson interview, she stated:

[We have] a responsibility under the Treaty of Waitangi to correct some of the wrongs that were done to Māori people in prior years ... under our teaching criteria [Teachers Standards] we have a responsibility to try and bring that back in and show that we value Māori culture and Te Reo. (Kendall, NZ)

In a similar way, a second teacher in New Zealand proposed:

Sometimes I use Māori phrases to call them in and just basic Māori words just so that the Māori students feel like because it is their country, so they have a bit of ownership and appreciation of using those terms. (Candice, NZ)

However, in Sweden and Norway, such practices are problematic at the regulative level. European Union (EU) policies cannot be based on attempts to determine the existence of separate human races or 'racial origin' (The Council of the European Union, [9]) and the use of the term 'race' has generally been abolished following the Second World War (Brännström. [6]). The Swedish and Norwegian approach is rather to provide equal opportunities in education regardless of the student´s backgrounds (Schenker et al., [52]). This serves as a prime example of how the enactment of social justice varies and how different contexts come to matter; that is, the identification and commitment to meeting Māori students' educational needs in ways that are culturally appropriate to them is central to social justice practices in all schooling in New Zealand, whereas in the Swedish and Norwegian context, the identification of students by race or ethnicity is considered to be discriminatory in itself since it is seen to reproduce racial/ethnic marginalisation (Brännström, [6]). It should be noted, however, that both the Swedish and Norwegian Educational Acts and curriculum documents include the recognition of the indigenous Sámi people's culture and language (Skolverket [Swedish National Agency for Education], [56]; Udir [Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training], [69]).

Normative elements represent the values and beliefs of a social group but also goals or objectives and how to achieve them as articulated (Scott, [54]). In the context of education and specific to this study, in the context of HPE, 'norms' are articulated in curriculum documents that outline what should be taught and the values upon which this teaching is based. In representing the normative element, it is instructive (but beyond the scope of this paper) to consider how the regulative elements intersect with curriculum writers and consultation processes with HPE teachers to create documents are representations of values and beliefs of the respective communities of practice (HPE teachers) (Penney & Evans, [44]; Scott, [54]).

The normative elements addressing social justice have a long history in school curriculum in all three countries. These normative elements related to social justice are expressed as values by the curriculum writers in the HPE curriculums and syllabus in each of the three countries, although they are most explicitly addressed in New Zealand curriculum (Ministry of Education, [33]). The Norwegian curriculum contains a 'Core Curriculum and the Quality Framework' that summarises and elaborates on the provisions in the Education Act (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, [39]). In the quality framework it is stated that a school is a learning community where diversity is acknowledged and responded to. In addition, the framework discusses the importance of cooperation and dialogue as a means to create cultural understanding, cultural competence, individual expression, tolerance and respect (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, [39]). The syllabus also includes a focus on social development whereby physical education should important promote fair play and respect for one another (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, [38]).

The Swedish schools are framed by the national curriculum that contains three parts; (1) Fundamental values and tasks of the school, (2) Overall goals and guidelines for education and (3) Syllabi for each subject which are supplemented by knowledge requirements. The fundamental values as well as the guidelines serve as normative elements as they promote values of 'solidary', 'respect', 'democracy' (The Swedish National Agency for Education, [61]). The schools are responsible for consciously promoting the equal rights and opportunities of all students. Teaching in HPE for years 10–12 should, for instance, give pupils opportunities to develop the 'ability to take an ethical stand on issues of gender patterns, gender equality and identity in relation to the performance of exercise and sport' (The Swedish National Agency for Education, [61], p. 2). The explicit focus on challenging the gender order in the Swedish HPE curriculum was mentioned by Charlie in her interview:

I believe that we have HPE with boys and girls together so that we are supposed to be able to work together and respect each other and respect each other's differences. (Charlie, SWE)

In Norway one of the teachers had a different approach to this but still represented an attempt to challenge gender dichotomies and stereotypes in HPE:

We have girls here who get along better with boys, and who might be more one of the guys than one of the girls, so focus on what kind of sex you have. No, I don't have focus on that. (Per, NOR)

In the New Zealand's HPE curriculum (Ministry of Education, [33]) a sense of social justice is explicitly mentioned among values and attitudes that are at the heart of the school subject. In addition, along with health promotion, the Māori philosophy of Hauora is emphasised which is about well-being that includes physical well-being, spiritual well-being, mental and emotional well-being and social well-being, where each one influences and supports the others. In the curriculum, social justice is related to a 'socio-ecological perspective' (Stokols, [59]), where the students should be enabled 'recognise that competing interests, power relationships, and access to resources may influence the ability of individuals, communities, and nations to achieve well-being' (New Zealand Ministry of Education, [37])

In previous publications (Mordal Moen et al., [35]; Smith et al., [57]) we noted the teacher-participants in all the three countries described how they enacted teaching social justice pedagogies based on caring of students through building positive trusting relationships and developing tolerance and inclusion through pedagogies designed to promote social cohesion. These core practices are built on the normative elements in each country. In our data we have seen this being done in different ways. In New Zealand, Tane stated that:

I think that I find it almost impossible to teach if I don't have a relationship with the students like I find it really difficult. [...] I try to get to know them I try to get to understand and I know that there are different ones that need to be treated differently I guess that how I work. (Tane, NZ)

In Sweden, Louise similarly explained how she acknowledges diversity by responding to individual student needs in different ways:

Normally we have to write it down when they come late. [...] He has problem with his stomach [...] I know him and he thinks it is hard for him. [...] I treat him different. (Louise, SWE)

This type of teaching has a strong connection to regulative and normative elements in school and HPE curricula particularly in the Scandinavian countries where in Sweden, the curriculum, for instance, states that 'through teaching, pupils should be given the opportunity to develop their interpersonal skills and respect for others (Swedish National Agency for Education, [61], p. 48). That is, the aim of developing interpersonal skills and respect for others formed an important learning outcome of HPE and not simply a secondary outcome. In our observation of Charlie, we, for example, noted that she 'introduced the lesson by explicitly telling the students that the aim was to develop collaboration and tactics through games' (Observation notes, SWE). Indeed, most teachers we observed purposefully and carefully mixed students and created heterogenous groupings to maximise the range of student to student interactions. For example, in Norway, Kari used 'Cross-group mixing to encourage social integration ... and different combinations to encourage intra-group diversity and to help the students understand the nature of diversity within their own class' (Observations notes, NOR). As we have argued elsewhere (Smith et al., [57]), this approach of teaching for social cohesion 'by providing active learning experiences where students can learn with and about other students with whom they may not normally associate with in their daily lives' can promote social justice and equity outcomes if it also involves an attempt to 'move students thinking beyond mere social integration to address the social conditions that privilege the values and beliefs of some communities' (p. 12).

Despite these strong messages in the regulative and normative elements associated with school HPE, the teacher's actions for social justice are also the result of the actors (both teachers and students) interpretation of what is possible and right. Cultural-cognitive elements such as the social context, traditions, culture and personal interpretations of what is possible and 'right', influence the teacher's decisions and the teaching. Many scholars emphasise the dominance of cultural-cognitive elements on how the regulative and normative elements play out in practices (see. e.g. DiMaggio, [11]; Scott [54]; [55]; Zucker [73]). As HPE is a subject taught primarily by teachers who have grown up with a love for sport, competition keeping healthy, the beliefs of many HPE teachers feature prominently as elements that influence practice and lead to many students feeling insecure and lacking in confidence (Gerdin & Pringle, [24]). Research continues to emphasise that HPE is one of those school subjects where the cultural-cognitive elements (the 'power of tradition') is strong (Barker et al., [3]; Evans & Rich, [19]; Gerdin, [21]). In short, despite strong regulatory and normative elements that form the basis for social justice in HPE, the cultural-cognitive elements surrounding social justice do not always permeate into the beliefs systems of teachers or their teaching in HPE. In our study, however, there is compelling evidence of the positive influence of the culture-cognitive elements, that is, the beliefs and values of the individual teachers, on the enactment of socially just HPE practices.

In our study, we have, for instance, seen that teachers recognise the importance of context. We could see different approaches to equity in New Zealand, Sweden and Norway where cultural-cognitive elements play out in different ways. In Sweden, Kane (SWE) described how he had to adapt his teaching to respond to the needs of a growing number of students for whom Swedish was not their first language:

When I started working I started with full immigrant children and I had to adapt my way of teaching to that with body language and always showing or using other students to show them how to do it when it is practical stuff and working. (Kane, SWE)

Similarly, Ola (NOR) remarked on multiple contextual factors that influenced teaching:

We get students who may have just arrived in Norway and have a completely different experience base. And we have to take that into account. But then we also get students from completely different schools, with completely different experience, which we also have to take into account. (Ola, NOR)

The data further showed that socially just HPE teaching practices may entail teaching about social justice issues in society. Teaching related to social justice is about challenging societal structures as related to for instance gender, ethnicity and culture both in school HPE and beyond the school setting. Examples of the former are to work across gender differences and utilise heterogeneous groups. Specific to the New Zealand context, Gary (NZ) described how he teaches for social justice through identifying gender stereotypes or prejudices related to ethnicity. In his interview, he said:

Racial stereotypes, like rugby is for Māori and Pacific people, is something we try to challenge. I have talked about that [gender stereotypes] already, so sometimes we put kids in netball skirts and we play netball and we have a conversation about why are you uncomfortable in a netball skirt. (Gary, NZ)

In a second example from New Zealand, Kendall described why she goes to great lengths to prepare and provide written resources in Māori language:

... Māori language was illegal in the 1960s people got caned in schools for speaking it and that a lot of things were done to Māori people to actually try and erase their culture from existence and I think as educators we have a responsibility to try and bring that back in and show that we value Māori culture and Te Reo [the language] ... (Kendall, NZ)

For Kane, Ola, Gary and Kendall, their own personal beliefs about what is just and equitable in relation to the contexts they are teaching in, have an influence on practice in ways that may (or may not) align with the regulative, and normative elements that provide the structures in which they teach.

A final example of the cultural-cognitive highlights the interplay between all three elements. In an observation of the lesson in Sweden where students rode bikes to and from a swimming pool, where the lesson focused on aquatics education, one of the researchers recorded how the teacher (Emma) enabled a student who had recently immigrated to Sweden to participate and how the school provided a bicycle and a teacher-aide / interpreter to a second student. The observer from New Zealand made the following observation:

Social justice here comes at all three levels. The State or Municipality provides additional funding to support the services required for integration. The school provides the services and organisational structure to help the boy integrate in the best way that they find possible, and at the individual class level the teacher and students are both tolerant of newcomers and very supportive in their actions. This is an example of the teacher recognising the need to understand individuals and their particular needs. (Observation notes, SWE)

In the description above, the alignment between the regulative, normative elements (the laws and school structures) and cultural-cognitive elements (the teachers' beliefs about what is right) enables the teacher to distribute resources based on need and a greater opportunity for students to achieve equitable outcomes. In the following discussion, we further address the complex interplay between regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements that both enable and constrain HPE teachers' enactments of social justice in HPE practice.

This paper has drawn attention to some different influential elements in order to understand the enactment of social justice in HPE across different contexts. HPE. Drawing on Scott's ([55]) theorising we have conceptualised school HPE as an institution comprised of regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements. The interaction between the regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements can in this way be seen to constitute the teachers' actions for social justice.

In this study, we noted how the laws and school systems can enable and constrain social justice across ethnicity, gender and socio-economic boundaries. In the findings, we observed how Emma (SWE) was able to call on the normative and regulative elements of legislation and school policies to provide additional resources such as a bicycle and a teacher-aide to students to enable the full participation of all students. We have reported previously (Philpot et al., [47]) on a similar practice in Norway where strong government policies on inclusion were enacted by the school through providing a teacher-aide for a single student to enable them to participate in a canoeing activity. In the New Zealand context, Kendall's account of her teaching presented in the findings of this paper provides a good example of how alignment of the regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements can support the regeneration of indigenous Māori language and culture which is endanger of being lost after years of colonisation. Although Te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi has stood as a founding document in New Zealand Government, a focus on embedding Māori culture and language in public schooling has only recently been prescribed in National Education Goals (Education.govt.nz, [15]), National Administration Guidelines (Education.govt.nz, [16]), and national teaching standards (Teaching Council Aotearoa New Zealand, [64]). Kendall's social justice pedagogies are enabled when these normative and regulative elements intersect with cultural-cognitive elements; that is; her own commitment to social justice for Māori. This alignment enables teachers to practice social justice pedagogies confident of the structural support embedded in the regulative and normative elements, rather than hiding their practices to avoid openly confronting antagonisms between policy mandates and their own educational values and beliefs (Deerness, [10]).

It is also clear from this study that the normative, regulative and cultural-cognitive elements do not always align and they compete for domination (Scott, [55]). On a regulative level, Swedish schools should be equal: all children must receive a high-quality education regardless of their conditions and background (The Swedish National Agency of Education, [61]). But a report from the Swedish National Agency for Education ([62]) shows that this is far from the case. During the 2000s, school segregation has increased in such a way that pupils have become increasingly divided based on their socio-economic and migration background. As a result, children from different backgrounds are less likely to be taught in the same Swedish classrooms (von Greiff, [71]). In addition, the privatisation of the Swedish school system allows parents greater choice in regard to where their children go to school. We can, on a regulative level, see that the tension between the social-democratic public movement agenda built up in the twentieth century and the mantra of neoliberalism. However, the study also revealed that some school districts are pushing back against this emerging segregation. One of the schools in Sweden where we completed observations was only recently opened at the crossroads of two ethnically and socio-economically diverse communities. The strategic placement of this school is an attempt to avoid the growing differences between neighbouring schools.

This study highlights the complex and uncertain influence of, and interaction between, the cultural-cognitive, normative and regulative elements on teaching practices. This uncertainty may explain why HPE teachers in different countries act in similar ways, but also why they sometimes act in different ways even though the regulative and normative elements are almost the same. In the findings from our EDUHEALTH project about teachers' everyday work in Sweden and Norway we could, for instance, see lot of work on relationships, social collaboration and acceptance of diversity consistent with the regulative elements of their strong social democracies. At the same time, however, there was a noticeable lack of activities at the classroom level aimed at raising the students' awareness of inequity and injustice. There were few examples of teachers promoting students' action for social justice (Dover, [12]), or impelling the students to take action on injustice in the society. Such practices were more common among the teachers in the New Zealand schools. In New Zealand's HPE curriculum we can see that a strong sense of social justice is explicitly mentioned among values and attitudes that are at the heart of the school subject. Yet in New Zealand, the economic disparity between schools was more apparent. The solution at the government level is to 'rank' schools based on social economic status of the community and provide greater funding for schools in less affluent communities.

This study also highlights the challenges for teachers trying to enact social justice pedagogies in the HPE classroom setting when broader societal structures such as charter/private and single-sex schools are enabled at the regulative level by education acts that legitimise uneven education systems. Although teachers may work for social justice in their classrooms, they cannot totally negate the inequities that occur in society. Students cannot leave the inequities they experience in society at the school gate. Despite the examples of the enactment of social justice identified in this study, we are left wondering what impact these practices might have without further changes at the regulative and normative level?

Based on the findings presented in this paper, we agree with Scott ([55]) who argues that although regulative and normative features are more 'visible', they can also be more superficial, 'thinner', and less consequential than cultural-cognitive elements when examining the practices of teachers in classrooms. In this study we 'handpicked' teachers who all held strong beliefs and values about the importance of incorporating inclusion, diversity, equity and social justice in their teaching practice, often based on their own lived experiences. As such, they all had a strong disposition towards social justice and the desire to make a difference in their teaching and therefore can be seen as the perfect 'agents' (DiMaggio, [11]) for (institutional) change and enacting the underpinning beliefs, values and norms embedded in both regulative (laws, education acts) and normative (HPE curricula and syllabi) elements. These findings emphasise the importance of the cultural-cognitive element (Casto & Sipple, [8]; Kazungu, [29]) in the realisation of desirable societal and education values in HPE teaching. We know from a wealth of research on the implementation of socially critical HPE curricula that problematic teaching practices related to exclusion and marginalisation despite curriculum intention is often due to teachers' long-held and narrow belief about sport, fitness, health and competition (see e.g. Gerdin & Pringle, [24]). It should be noted that in our study we only focused on the influence of individual teachers' beliefs on practice and that is also often an overall HPE teaching culture or discourse that have a great impact on enabling or constraining socially just teaching practices (Gerdin, [20]). As stated at the start of the findings, we must recognise that the beliefs and values of individual teachers (the culture-cognitive element) are constructed within, and are likely to be reflective of, the regulative and normative elements of society. Conversely, the regulative elements are always subject to the changing 'mood' of society (Lawn & Grek, [32]).

Our findings theorised within Scott's ([55]) institutional theory therefore reinforce the importance of the contribution of HPE teacher education programmes to future teachers' beliefs, values and dispositions towards equity and social justice. In this respect, we still share Tinning's ([67]) sentiment that 'how HPE teachers think and feel about education, social justice, physical activity, bodies and health that will be their most important graduate attribute' (p. 224, italics in original). Following Scott's argument, we assert that the cultural-cognitive elements, the beliefs and values of HPE teachers can be constitutive of the normative elements (e.g. curriculum and enactment of curriculum) and regulative elements (e.g. laws) (as also indicated in Figure 1).

In conclusion, this paper has highlighted how the regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements constitute teaching in HPE in relation to social justice. The elements act upon each other and the interplay between them, means that HPE practices do not take place in a vacuum but are shaped by the surrounding educational, socio-historical and political milieu, a milieu that can enable or constrain the enactment of social justice in HPE. We therefore argue that the best conditions for the enactment of social justice in HPE teaching practice are dependent on the coherencies in the interplay between the regulative (laws), normative (curriculum) and the cultural-cognitive (the HPE teachers' interpretations and actions). The intersection of personal beliefs in social justice, curricula that foreground social justice and strong legislation based on social justice produce a large 'sweet spot' in which social justice pedagogies are enabled. These findings thus draw further attention to the importance of context in teaching practices for social justice (Tinning, [66]) and we conclude by calling for more research into what social justice pedagogies (can/should) look like in other HPE contexts. Since our study did not involve the students, future studies could also importantly explore students' experiences of the enactment of social justice in HPE practice across different contexts.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

The authors declared potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The results presented in this article only reflects the authors' views and the European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.