Building castles in the sand”: Community, context and physical culture

Burrows, Lisette School of Physical Education, University of Otago

Myth busting. This presentation challenged common assumptions about children being ‘at risk’ in relation to physical inactivity, poor nutrition and unsafe environments.

She argued that the diversity of children’s social and cultural demographics is seldom considered. Children’s own perceptions of physical activity, their own engagement with physical culture in home, school and community senses, is rarely drawn on to inform the programmes and policies devised ‘for’ them.

She presented a paper which reported on in-depth qualitative interviews with four Year 6 young children from a rural school in New Zealand about what was important to them in terms of health and physical activity. The children associated sport with physical activity and did not consider; horse riding, motor cross, and tree climbing etc when asked about physical activity.

Findings suggest that, for the children in this rural context, many commonly held presumptions about children’s inactivity and the nature of their ‘modern’ lifestyles do not apply.

• Children in this study were engaged in a range of physical activities, both functional and recreational.
• They clearly linked their physical activity choices to social, geographical, economic and familial enablers.
• Infrequently revealed any sense of themselves, or others, as ‘at risk’ in relation to health and/or physical activity practices.
• Their descriptions of their lives and the place of physical activity within those gel closely with the ‘ideal’ envisaged by many who seek to change the lifestyles and habits of the ‘young’.