Abstract:
This research presents findings of a study designed to investigate why some policy responses to the ongoing childhood obesity epidemic in the USA have proven to be largely ineffective. Eight case studies were created using qualitative data collected from four high schools in Mississippi and four high schools in Tennessee. These two states are consistently ranked as having some of the highest levels of obesity in the nation and have recently introduced several new policies designed to address the high rates of childhood obesity. The case studies were constructed to examine how policies designed to improve the provision for physical education (PE) were developed and subsequently enacted in schools exhibiting significant diversity along size, ethnicity, urbanicity, and economic dimensions. Data were drawn from 50 interviews with state officials, district administrators, school principals, PE and classroom teachers, counselors, and parents. Further data were collected from focus groups with students, sustained observation of relevant school-based activities, such as PE lessons, and documentary analyses of official and popular press publications. We present findings that indicate why PE policy has been ignored, misinterpreted, avoided, and/or distorted by key school-based actors. In particular, we find that administrators and PE teachers engage in sensemaking strategies that frequently preclude them from enacting policy in an effective way. Thus, we call for a different approach to future policy development. Rather than policy formulation and subsequent enactment being considered as largely independent activities, we argue instead for a dialectical process that highlights the local contextual constraints and micro-activities of relevant actors that shape the day-to-day lives of school stakeholders. In this way, policy can become more malleable and realistic, and may be enacted in ways that are locally relevant. This, we contend, will significantly enhance the likelihood of future obesity- and school-related policies being effective