Physical education and citizenship: More than just the creation of the “personally responsible” body?

Current notions of “good” citizenship have become closely related to the pursuit of good health and wellbeing. This, alongside popular claims that physical education can be associated with the promotion of particular morals, values and attitudes, suggests that the subject may be viewed as cultivating a specific type of person or “body”. A number of ideological and political tensions associated with the development of the personally responsible citizen in physical education are analysed before I argue that The New Zealand Curriculum, partnered with an action oriented critical pedagogy, has the potential to extend students beyond the personally responsible and to some extent the participatory concepts of citizenship to a more justice-oriented approach.