Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy

(Re)connecting Physical Education to the living world: ecocentric, embodied and indigenous pedagogies for sustainability education

In the context of the Anthropocene, Education for Sustainable development (EfS) has become a global priority. Yet, its dominant framing, often shaped by UNESCO's focus on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is increasingly critiqued for its underlying anthropocentrism. This perspective perpetuates a nature/culture dichotomy, positioning humanity as separate from, and superior to, the natural world. Such a view limits EfS to a project of resource management rather than a fundamental rethinking of our place within the web of life.

This special issue addresses a critical gap in the field of Physical Education by examining how pedagogical practices can contribute to ecological sustainability. By bringing together ecocentric perspectives, embodied pedagogies, and Indigenous and Global South epistemologies, the issue seeks to advance current debates and provide new insights into how teaching and learning processes can foster more relational and responsible ways of engaging with the environment. 

Therefore, this special issue seeks to offer a critical intervention, arguing that for EfS to be truly transformative, it must move beyond anthropocentrism and cultivate a deeper, more-than-human ecological consciousness. We contend that PE, through its embodied practices and situated engagement with environments, provides a particularly fertile educational space in which ecological relationships can be experienced rather than merely conceptualised.

However, this requires a pedagogy that actively resists the instrumentalisation of nature often seen in outdoor sports (e.g., nature as a backdrop for consumption or conquest). Instead, we seek to explore pedagogies that foster a sensitive and reciprocal connection with the environment.

The urgency of the climate crisis and the global call to decolonise academia make this special issue both timely and essential. Education systems are being challenged to rethink how they prepare younger generations to live within ecological limits. Physical Education, through its focus on embodied practice and relational engagement with environments, offers a particularly fertile field for exploring new educational possibilities.

Scope and Areas of Interest

This special issue invites contributions that explore and advance an ecocentric vision of physical education (PE). We seek papers that examine how PE can contribute to the development of educational perspectives in which humans are understood as embedded within ecological systems rather than positioned above them.

We are particularly interested in contributions addressing one or more of the following interconnected pillar:

1) Ecocentric and embodied pedagogies: We invite papers that challenge anthropocentric assumptions by exploring ecocentric and embodied approaches to teaching and learning in PE. This includes work examining how sensory engagement, contemplative practices, environmental attunement and embodied experiences can blur the perceived boundary between nature and culture, fostering a sense of kinship with the more-than-human world. PE offers unique opportunities to cultivate perceptual, affective, and relational connections with environments through movement-based practices. We particularly welcome contributions that:

• Examine pedagogical models for ecocentric and embodied learning in PE,
• Analyse how bodily techniques and movement practices shape and transform students’ relationships with environments,
• Document students’ lived experiences in outdoor or environmentally situated activities,
• Explore practices that cultivate sensory awareness, attentional quality, and environmental attunement,
• Address curriculum design and policy for transformative, ecocentric approaches to education for sustainability (EfS) in PE,
• Investigate initial teacher education and professional development aimed at fostering sensitive, embodied connections to nature.

These contributions are expected not only to document such experiences but also to examine how they can be pedagogically structured, supported and sustained in everyday teaching contexts.

2) Indigenous and Global South perspectives: The ecological crisis is also a crisis of dominant Western worldviews and epistemologies. We therefore invite contributions that engage with Indigenous knowledges and pedagogies, as well as with relational, decolonial and ecological perspectives emerging from the Global South. This special issue seeks to foster dialogue across different ways of knowing and relating to more-than-human worlds, while remaining attentive to their distinct historical, cultural and place-based foundations. Other critical and relational perspectives, including ecofeminism and new materialism, may further contribute to challenging anthropocentric understandings of bodies, environments and education, and to rethinking human–more-than-human relations in PE.

We welcome papers exploring, for example, Māori concepts of hauora, First Nations land-based education, or African philosophies such as Ubuntu, as relational and place-based ways of knowing and being that can challenge dominant assumptions and contribute to pluralistic and decolonised approaches to EfS in PE. Relevant topics may include:

• Indigenous and First Peoples’ perspectives on land-based learning, relationality, and sustainability,
• Global South philosophies and pedagogies as situated alternatives to dominant Western approaches to education for sustainability in PE,
• Critiques of instrumental and utilitarian approaches in outdoor education and sport,
• Intersections of ecological sustainability, social justice, and Indigenous sovereignty in PE.

Particular attention will be given to how these perspectives can inform concrete pedagogical practices and challenge existing teaching norms in physical education.

A pedagogical focus: from critique to practice

The core focus of this special issue is pedagogical. We explicitly seek contributions that address the how of teaching. We welcome empirical, theoretical, and practice-based papers that examine concrete pedagogical approaches, including:

• specific teaching strategies
• curriculum designs
• pedagogical models
• teacher education practices

The aim is to move beyond abstract critique towards situated, actionable, and transformative pedagogical practices in PE. In line with the aims and scope of Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, contributions should maintain a clear focus on pedagogy and make an explicit contribution to understanding teaching and learning in PE and/or physical education teacher education (PETE).