Educating the Body presents a history of physical education in Canada, shedding light on its major advocates, innovators, and institutions. The book traces the major developments in physical education from the early nineteenth century to the present day – both within and beyond schools – and concludes with a vision for the future. It examines the realities of Canada’s classed, gendered, and racialized society and reveals the rich history of Indigenous teachings and practices that ...

Architecture and design have been used to exert control over bodies, across lines of class, gender and race. They regulate access to certain spaces and facilities, impose physical or psychological barriers, and make particular activities possible for specific groups.Built in 1951, the War Memorial Gymnasium at the University of British Columbia is a prize-winning example of modernist architecture. Although conceived to honour the dead of World War II, it was far from being a neutral...

During the past decade, there has been an outpouring of books on 'the body' in society, but none has focused as specifically on physical culture - that is, cultural practices such as sport and dance within which the moving physical body is central.Questions are raised about the character of the body, specifically the relation between the ‘natural’ body, the ‘constructed’ body and the ‘alien’ or ‘virtual’ body. The themes of the book are wide in scope, including:physic...

Roberta J. Park has been throughout her distinguished career a scholar with a mission - to win academic recognition of the significance of the body in culture and cultures. Her scholarship has earned her global esteem in the disciplines of Physical Education and Sports Studies for its penetrating insights.This selection of her writings is a well-deserved tribute to her interpretive originality, her intellectual acuity and her ability to inspire colleagues and students.To ex...

The study of built environments such as gymnasiums, football stadiums, swimmimg pools and skating rinks provides unique information about the historical enclosure of the gendered and sexualised body, the body's capabilities, needs and desires. It illuminates the tensions between the globalising tendencies of sport and the importance of local culture and a sense of place. This collection uses spatial concepts and examples to examine the nature and development of sporting practices. At a tim...

The Female Tradition in Physical Education re-examines a key question in the history of modern education: why did the remarkably successful leaders of female physical education, who pioneered the development of the subject in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, lose control in the years following the Second World War? Despite the later resurgence of second wave feminism they never regained a voice, with the result that male leadership wa...

During the last four decades women’s and gender history have become vibrant fields including studies of attitudes regarding the limited physical and other abilities of females as well as studies of the accomplishments of notable female athletes. We have become increasingly aware that women have made contributions to physical education, dance and sport that go far beyond being teachers, athletes and coaches. They have created and implemented an astonishing variety of programs intended to se...