"The thesis of this work sets out a history of physical education in Canada with a focus on the major advocates, innovators, and institutions that helped shaped it. This work places the historical narrative within the social, economic, and political conditions that impacted institutions, advocates, and innovators as they influenced the formulation of state physical education schooling in Canada between the Ryerson era (1803-1882) and ending with the early decades of the 21st century. The title of the work, "Educating the Body" recognizes that "the body" has its own unique vocabulary and analysis, and as such, reflects the authors' belief that physical education curriculum should ideally enable the learner to direct their own discovery of body agency (and the joy of movement) in ways that are creative, self-expressive and true to their lived body experience. As the work demonstrates, however, waves of state-directed physical education curriculum each held their own agenda about how the "ideal" child and adolescent body should be trained within the context of hegemonic paradigms of dominance and control. The work is framed around three major developments that shape the analysis: a) the significant growth of critical, social scientific research about physical education and sport during the last 50 years (through the lens of social, material, feminist, post-structuralist and queer theory); b) the tensions underlying the evolution of kinesiology and the "displacement" (p. 13) of physical education as a school subject; and c) evidence from the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada."-- Provided by publisher.

Ryerson and His Vision -- Towards a Pan-Canadian Curriculum -- The Margaret Eaton School: Forty Years of Women's Physical Education -- Fit for Living -- Setting a Heroic Agenda--Realizing the Possibilities -- Changing Times and New Initiatives -- Seeking Optimism in a Contested Field.