Is physical education relevant?
Over recent years, the New Zealand curriculum has been tailored to help students develop skills relevant for their own lives and communities, and provide inclusive learning opportunities. The Health and Physical Education curriculum has also been developed in this way, through the inclusion of social skills and social values as outcomes. However, some argue that teaching set social skills and values can work to reinforce middle class agendas and marginalise minority students, and point to the lower outcomes achieved by ethnic and indigenous students as evidence. A 2004 research study in a low socioeconomic school found that while the curriculum helps ethnic and indigenous students develop meaningful social skills and values, it neglects to address whether or how students are to use these skills within their own cultures. The study is based on interviews and self-reflections from seven Year 12 Maori and Pasifika students, who undertook leadership activities with younger students in spor
