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This BERA event has been organised to showcase a special issue of the Curriculum Journal entitled ‘Potentialities in health and physical education: Professional boundaries and change agendas’, edited by Dr. Malcolm Thorburn and Dr. Shirley Gray (University of Edinburgh).

The special issue raises some demanding issues about the future of health and physical education (HPE) at a time when arguments for enhanced curriculum prominence exist alongside the possibility of increased marketisation in school governance arrangements. These complexities are reviewed in terms of their implications for change agendas in schools, both in regard to subject teaching and more widely in terms of their consequences for the professional boundaries that shape and define educators work. Papers in the special issue focus on two broad areas:

• teachers’ expertise, their curriculum development and enactment role and their accountability expectations
• the future of HPE in relation to social and emotional learning, physical literacy and healthy lifestyles.

The editorial aspiration for the papers in this special issue, and for this BERA event, is that collectively they will stimulate further professional discussions and inform future research agendas.

There are nine articles in this special issue. Authors from five of those articles will present their research during this event. They are:

• ‘Grappling with complex ideas: Physical education, physical literacy, physical activity, sport and play in one professional learning initiative’, by Kirsten Petrie and Clive Pope (University of Waikato) and Darren Powell (University of Auckland).
• ‘Health-oriented “Bildung” or an obligation to a healthy lifestyle? A critical analysis of current PE curricula in Germany’, by Sebastian Ruin (University of Graz) and Günter Stibbe (German Sports University)
• ‘The personal visions of physical education student teachers: Putting the education at the heart of physical education’, by Mike Jess, Paul McMillan, Nicola Carse and Karen Munro (University of Edinburgh).
• ‘Teacher agency in enacting physical education in a period of curriculum change and reform in Ireland’, by Dylan Scanlon, Antonio Calderón and Ann MacPhail (University of Limerick).
• ‘A transformative learning journey of a teacher educator in enacting an activist approach in Physical Education Teacher Education’, by Carla Luguetti (Victoria University) and Kimberly L. Oliver (New Mexico State University).