Books

This book is the first of two volumes that provide an international snapshot of the contemporary state of outdoor risky play. Utilising a range of voices, it brings together perspectives from the United States of America, Australia, England, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovenia, Ireland, Finland, Turkey, Italy, Canada, and South Africa, to explore issues such as the enablers and opportunities afforded by risky outdoor play. With diminished opportunities for children to engage in free play in the great outdoors and connect with nature, there has never been a more important time to examine this topic in greater detail. By unifying voices from across the globe, this book seeks to empower each child’s right to learn and develop naturally in risky outdoor play.

This book fills a gap in literature by generating a combined history of Physical Education (PE), School Sport (SS) and Health Education (HE) in New South Wales (NSW) public schools from 1880 to 2024. It includes broad discussions on how political issues such as the World Wars influenced (i) the PE curriculum, which was used as a medium to prepare a ‘fit’ army, (ii) the school sport system, which acted as an expression of national strength via showcasing sporting prowess on the international stages of the Olympic Games, and (iii) the health education curriculum, which addressed infectious diseases resulting from poor hygiene associated with poverty. The book also adopts a socio-cultural perspective to the constructs of PE, SS, and HE curricula and highlights significant local, national, and international historical events and issues as factors driving curriculum developments and paradigm shifts in these subjects in the NSW public education and beyond. It brings new and engendering socio-historical findings to the discipline fields of PE, SS, and HE, combined with an innovative methodology in critical historiographical studies.

Andrew Grainger co-edits a major academic volume analysing the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, co-hosted by Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. This landmark event marked a turning point for women’s sport in terms of global visibility, audience reach, and cultural impact. The book addresses not only the success of the tournament but also the political and social controversies that followed, highlighting its significance beyond football.

With contributions from international scholars, the book explores key themes such as media representation, gender inequality, Indigeneity, fandom, tourism, and the organisational politics of global sport federations. It sheds light on the ongoing challenges facing women’s football, including... read more

Felicity Picken co-edits this book examining the oceanic presence in life on Earth, and the ways that we engage with the oceanic worlds for play, pleasure, adventure, and the pursuit of leisure and escape through tourism and travel.

The oceanic ‘turn’ across the social sciences and humanities has produced a still proliferating opus of work that seeks to discover and emphasize oceanic presence in life on Earth. This literal and figurative ‘unearthing’ of blue spaces has encouraged scholars to gaze beyond the lands that have supported much of our experience and knowledge towards the gathering up of a more holistic appreciation of blue planetary life. This widening of scholarly attention – from ‘land’ to ‘sea’ – is occurring simultaneously across a range of disciplines and fields, including history, archaeology, anthropology, comparative literature, public policy, cultural studies, and geography. With an explicit focus on 'leisure' and 'tourism', this edited collection follows a growing appreciation that it is our seemingly inconsequential encounters – at play, for pleasure, and on holidays – that are increasingly present and influential in our oceanic relations.

This volume will be of value to scholars and students interested in social and cultural history and environmental history and humanities.