This collection of studies addresses contemporary issues and problems in the physical education curriculum. While each of the chapters illustrates the diverse range of practical curriculum issues currently facing physical education, the continuities between them also suggest a certain commonality of experience in Britain, North America and Au tralia. In each it is difficult not to detect at least some rumblings of the various crises - environmental, political, economic, social - that are increasingly impacting on everyday lives in the present and shaping thoughts and plans for the future. The editors stress that physical education is a part of social life and is therefore a key site for the production and legitimation of important cultural mores, values and symbols.