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The body has been one of the central tools in analysing connections between sport and postcolonialism in India, given how sport was an essential part of the colonial ‘civilising’ mission, which involved disciplining and controlling Indian bodies. Any discursive understanding of sport and postcolonialism in India must consider how it relates to existing concepts of the body and shapes the experiences of the people involved in it – acknowledging not just the power of colonialism in moulding sporting experiences but also the force of internal hierarchies that exist in Indian society. This chapter explores the experiences of students who studied in higher educational institutions in Kerala under the ‘sports quota’, a system that reserves seats in colleges/universities for high-performing sportspersons in India. Through their interviews, the sustained exclusion of the sporting body in contemporary Indian pedagogy is illustrated here. Specifically, the continuing prevalence of the colonial emphasis on the sporting body, as one whose strength and instrumentality are paramount, as well as its corollary postcolonial position, which treats this sporting body as inferior to the ‘refined mind’ of studious pupils, can be observed. Approaching the sports quota with a decolonising lens would require re-examining the disembodied nature of pedagogy in India’s higher educational institutions, acknowledging sporting students’ lived experiences, and a seamless integration – as opposed to separation/exclusion – of the sportsperson into higher education.

The aim of this study was directed toward how a group of fourth year bachelor physiotherapy students describes their experiences, attitudes and beliefs from participating in a course of 40 h lasting three months in basic body awareness therapy (BBAT).

A qualitative study using phenomenological exploratory design was conducted. A total of 125 physiotherapy students within the subject of mental health physiotherapy, in the fourth year’s study course belonging participated. The BBAT introduction course consisted of 20 h theory and 20 h practical implementation with a particular focus on promoting movement quality through a movement awareness learning strategy. The course was carried out through three consecutive years. Data were collected through using focus group interview at the end of each movement session and qualitative face-to-face research interview at the end of the whole course.

The data-analysis revealed 16 emerging themes grouped into four categories: physical perceptions, body awareness characteristics, self-awareness and body awareness professional development.

This study highlights key experiences after attending a course on BBAT. In addition, it points out that to achieve movement quality awareness among the students, there is a need to include more self-training in the curriculum.

The movement quality learning process is necessary to develop the mental health physiotherapy program. The experiences of students while body awareness learning process included physical perceptions, body awareness characteristics, self-awareness and professional development.

This study is among the first to describe the experiences of students when a movement awareness learning methodology is applied. In physiotherapy in mental health, this learning process is relevant for the application of BBAT.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the inter-relationship between choreography and pedagogy. It refers specifically to a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project that dealt with investigations into performance making and the design of a teaching and learning model. Shifts from making performance from a pre-determined starting point to a participatory and interactive process are traced to reveal a “choreographic pedagogy” informed and transformed by the experience of its actors.

The paper includes a brief explanation of the terms and shared features of choreography and pedagogy, and how PAR facilitated a cyclic generation of new findings that drove the research forward. The research question is tackled through concepts, practices and tasks within the four cycles of research, each year with new participants, questions and expanding contexts.

The experience of the research participants reveals unexpected and “unfolding phenomena” that open up spaces for imagining, creating and interpreting, as a “choreographic pedagogy” in action.

The research might appear to be limited to the areas of performance and teaching and learning, although it could provide a model for other subjects, especially for those that engage with creative processes.

The research is a “practice as research” model and has implications for research in education as a practice of knowledge exploration and generation.

It is original and has the potential to inform the ways in which educators explore and expand their disciplines through teaching and learning investigations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the sonic vibrations, infectious rhythms and alternative frequencies that are often unheard and overlooked within mainstream educational spaces, that is, perceptually coded out of legibility by those who read/see/hear the world through “whiteness.”

“Plugging into” (Jackson and Mazzei, 2012) posthuman theories of affect (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987; Henriques, 2010) and assemblage (Weheliye, 2014), the author argues that “literate bodies,” along with all forms of matter, continually vibrate, move, swell and rebel (Deleuze, 1990), creating momentum that is often difficult not to get tangled up in.

This paper maps out how a specific sociohistorical concept of sound works to affectively orient bodies and impact student becomings, namely, by producing students as un/successful readers and in/human subjects. At the same time, the author attends to the subtle ways by which first graders rebelliously move (d) with alternative sonic frequencies to resist/disrupt mandated literacy curricula and white, patriarchal ways of knowing, being and doing.

This paper highlights the political nature of sound and how, within mainstream educational spaces, certain sonic frequencies become coded out of white supremacist models for knowledge transmission, which re/produce racialized (gendered, classist, etc.) habits and practices of listening/hearing. Literacy educators are invited to “(re)hear” the social in more just ways (James, 2020) by sensing the affects and effects of more-than-human “sonic bodies” (Henriques, 2011), which redirect us to alternative rhythms, rationalities, habits and practices that challenge normative conceptions of what counts as literacy and who counts as successfully literate.

Purpose – This chapter discusses a study in which we examined campus architecture, spatial design, aesthetics, and cultural policy with regard to the manner in which attributes in these visual and textual entities shape the full range of diversity of the student body or the individuals and collective group who study within the university.

Methodology – This chapter presents the qualitative element of a larger multi-method inquiry. The data for this study were generated from a sample composed of eight universities in four states in the United States and of cultural policy documents from multiple universities in addition to the eight specific universities that were visited on-site.

Findings – Twelve themes emerged from data derived from campus visits to eight universities representing diverse geographies and institutional structures and from analysis of the cultural policies of 30 institutions of higher education. Taxonomic analysis (analysis of the organization of themes and their relationships to one another) revealed important directional associations among the themes yielding rich findings for future theory development and testing.

Implications – The findings yielded important understandings about the influence of cultural policy as reflected in the campus community, on inclusion, exclusion, and diversity. Of particular note were the unexpected thematic findings regarding the political, proprietary preferences of “disabled” groups related to space ownership and the future implications of occupying specialized designated architectures. We conclude with conceptual and methodological directions for expanding this research agenda internationally and for informing change in cultural policy and architectures on campus communities.

This paper aims to address weight-based bullying as a persistent issue among adolescents. Fat phobia, rooted in societal biases against overweight individuals, leads to social exclusion and discrimination, negatively impacting mental health and equality. Educational settings suffer from the profound effects of fat phobia, creating a toxic atmosphere that distracts from learning and marginalizes students who don't conform to traditional physical norms.

This paper combines historical analysis, literature review and critical discourse analysis. It examines the historical roots of fat phobia, explores the impact of societal influences, analyzes contemporary educational practices and the use of popular culture as a innovative tool.

Leveraging popular culture in anti-fat phobia education effectively challenges stereotypes. Educators empower students to critically analyze media depictions, encouraging empathy and inclusivity. Current events serve as critical teaching tools, sparking discussions on intersecting discrimination forms and equity.

This paper emphasizes the urgent need to comprehensively address fat phobia in education, advocating for a shift in societal attitudes toward body diversity. Popular culture can serve as an educational tool to create inclusive classrooms where all students are valued and free from weight-based discrimination.

This paper emphasizes the urgent need to comprehensively address fat phobia in education, advocating for a shift in societal attitudes toward body diversity. Popular culture can serve as an educational tool to create inclusive classrooms where all students are valued and free from weight-based discrimination.

The originality and value of this paper lie in its multi-faceted approach to examining weight-based discrimination, its historical context, practical educational strategies, and the innovative use of popular culture as a tool for promoting inclusivity and empathy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore teacher candidates’ response to young adult literature (prose and comics) featuring fat identified protagonists. The paper considers the textual and embodied resources readers use and reject when imagining and interpreting a character’s body. This paper explores how readers’ meaning making was influenced when reading prose versus comics. This paper adds to a corpus of scholarship about the relationships between young adult literature, comics, bodies and reader response theory.

At the time of the study, participants were enrolled in a teacher education program at a Midwestern University, meeting monthly for a voluntary book club dedicated to reading and discussing young adult literature. To examine readers’ responses to comics and prose featuring fat-identified protagonists, the author used descriptive qualitative methodologies to conduct a thematic analysis of meeting transcripts, written participant reflections and researcher memos. Analysis was grounded in theories of reader response, critical fat studies and multimodality.

Analyses indicated many readers reject textual clues indicating a character’s body size and weight were different from their own. Readers read their bodies into the stories, regarding them as self-help narratives instead of radical counternarratives. Some readers were not able to read against their assumptions of thinness (and whiteness) until prompted by the researcher and other participants.

Although many reader response scholars have demonstrated readers’ tendencies toward personal identification in the face of racial and class differences, there is less research regarding classroom practices around the entanglement of physical bodies, body image and texts. Analyzing reader’s responses to the constructions of fat bodies in prose versus comics may help English Language Arts (ELA) educators and students identify and deconstruct ideologies of thin-thinking and fatphobia. This study, which demonstrates thin readers’ tendencies to overidentify with protagonists, suggests ELA classrooms might encourage readers to engage in critical literacies that support them in reading both with and against their identities.

This study aims to assess the relationship between anxiety with body concern, academic variables and food desire in undergraduate Nutrition students.

This was a cross-sectional study conducted with 173 students from the undergraduate course of Nutrition in the Midwest region of Brazil. Socioeconomic, academic and behavioral data (Beck Anxiety Inventory, Body Shape Questionnaire and Food Desires Questionnaire) were collected.

One-third of the students had moderate or severe anxiety symptoms. There were no differences between socioeconomic characteristics in terms of the intensity of anxiety symptoms. Students with minimal symptoms of anxiety had a higher average grade in the course, when compared to those with mild or moderate symptoms and those with severe symptoms (p = 0.001). It was observed that 46.2% had some concerns about their bodies and 11% had severe body concerns. The average grade was associated with anxiety so that 1 point in the global grade is associated to 54% (p < 0,001) less chance of having moderate; severe anxiety. In conclusion, average grade was associated with anxiety in undergraduate Nutrition students.

Average grade was a protection factor for anxiety in undergraduate Nutrition students.

In this chapter, the authors discuss the results of research carried out on a sample of students at an elite university in the northeastern United States. The focus of the research was the interpretations that the students gave to a period of digital meditation. Meditation, yoga, and mindfulness have boomed in popularity over the past few years. Several factors are responsible of our “age of anxiety.” The de-standardization of life trajectories makes people freer (at least apparently) but requires more choices and, thus, reduces the sense of security. According to Rosa (2010), anxiety has intensified due to social acceleration. Therefore, it is not surprising that we sleep less than before. However, sleep loss is not just due to stress. According to Crary (2013), capitalism produces a consumer who should be able to buy “7/24.” Consequently, the chances of consumption should not have temporal boundaries. In sum, it is not surprising that there are numerous apps to cope with anxiety. Going back to the research, one result should be mentioned: several students have used biomedical jargon to describe the effects of meditation. Someone spoke of “digital therapy” referring to meditation. Moreover, some affirmed that the perception that they had of their own body had changed; thus, they were more keen on the quantifiable aspects of bodily health. In general, students found meditation as a very useful “therapy” for a quick fix for the many stresses of college. This is why we called it a “positive” medicalization.

The simplest approach to measuring racial composition is to calculate only the proportion of White students in the total undergraduate enrollment (%White). This was the most common approach in earlier studies of student body racial diversity (see, e.g., Astin, 1993).² A slightly different alternative, at least conceptually, is to calculate the percentage of students of color or racial minorities (students who reported their racial/ethnicity to be non-White). Recent studies are more likely to use this alternative (see, e.g., Antonio, 2001; Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, & Gurin, 2002; Terenzini, Cabrera, Colbeck, Bjorklund, & Parente, 2001). This measure centers the focus of analysis on students of color and thus may be more advantageous than “%White” for interpreting findings. Still, the basic assumption underlying both approaches is that as the proportion of White students decline and by definition the proportion of students of color increase, the student body necessarily becomes more diverse. Accordingly, these approaches presume a zero-sum game for diversity on college campuses, where gains for one group come at the expense of other groups.