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bARRIERS TO QUALITY PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND SOLUTIONS
Barriers other than the policies detailed above hinder efforts to improve 
and maintain high-quality physical education. This section reviews these 
barriers, along with some solutions for overcoming them.
barriers
Morgan and Hanson (2008) classify barriers that hinder schools 
from implementing quality physical education programs as either insti-
tutional (outside the teacher’s control) or teacher related (arising from 
teacher behavior). Table 5-4 lists institutional and teacher-related as well as 
student-related barriers identified by various authors. 
Dwyer and colleagues (2003) examined Toronto teachers’ perspectives 
on why children were not engaged in daily physical education. They identi-
fied three categories of barriers: lower priority for physical education rela-
tive to other subjects, lack of performance measures for physical activity, 
and lack of sufficient infrastructure. Jenkinson and Benson (2010) surveyed 
270 secondary school physical education teachers in Victoria, Australia, 
and asked them to rank order the barriers they perceived to providing qual-
ity physical education. The results are shown in Table 5-5. The institutional 

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Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School
Approaches to Physical Education in Schools
 
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