The recently published text School physical education and teacher education: Collaborative redesign for the twenty-first century set out ‘to generate a scholarly forum for strategic planning, proactive leadership, and adaptive designs to shape more desirable futures for physical education, physical education teacher education, teachers, children and youth, and schools and communities’ (p. 179). The complement of authors who undertook this challenge included a consultant for career transitions, curriculum manager, education officer, pedagogical coordinator, PhD candidate, professional practice fellow, professor, programme manager school teacher, teacher educator and university instructor. One of the main ‘take home’ messages from the text is that ‘There is a significant gap between recommended practices and policies and what happens in the day-to-day realities of schools. To address this, we need to stop working in isolation and work with, and learn from, each other […] allows for a shared understanding on why we have set such an agenda and encourages enactment through ongoing learning and capacity building’ (p. 9).
Staying true to the premise of the book, it is important for us all to consider how best we can galvanise different stakeholders to engage with the upcoming AIESP 2021 Conference. Indeed, a conscious decision was made to provide a sub-theme that would encourage such participation – Engaging stakeholders (e.g. practitioners, students, administrators, parents, curriculum developers) in exploring the relationship between quality research and quality practice in physical education and sport pedagogy. This theme is focused around understanding how quality research shapes quality practice and how quality practice shapes quality research. Research that pays particular attention to those voices that may often be excluded is welcomed. I encourage colleagues to seriously consider contributing to this sub-theme by capturing the realities of working with multiple-stakeholders and, as important, invite them to present at the conference.
