Professor David Kirk

Education

Personal statement

I am currently Professor of Education and former Head of the School of Education (2014-17) at the University of Strathclyde. I am an educational researcher with teaching and research interests in educational innovation, curriculum history, and physical education and sport pedagogy. I am founding editor of the peer reviewed journal Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy (Routledge) and editor of Routledge Studies in Physical Education and Youth Sport. I have held academic appointments previously in universities in England, Australia, Ireland and Belgium and am currently Honorary Professor of Human Movement Studies at the University of Queensland. My most recent book Precarity, Critical Pedagogy and Physical Education was published by Routledge in 2020. My most recent co-authored book with Dr Kimberly Oliver, Girls, Gender and Physical Education: An Activist Perspective, was published by Routledge in August 2015. A book co-edited with Professor Patricia Vertinsky (University of British Columbia) Female Traditions in Physical Education: 'Women First' Revisted was published by Routledge in 2016.

Expertise

Back to staff profile

Area of Expertise

Curriculum historian
Qualitative researcher
Curriculum designer
School-based intervention designer
Physical education teacher educator

Prize And Awards

Best Paper Award by the American Educational Research Association Special Interest Group in Research on Instruction and Learning in Physical Education 2017: Recipient; 27/4/2017
Fritz Duras Memorial Lecture: Recipient; 22/11/2013
International Fellow: Recipient; 1/9/2012
Fellow: Recipient; 1/7/2010
Fellow: Recipient; 1/7/2005

More prizes and awards

Publications

Back to staff profile

Publications

Psychometric validation of the tactical assessment instrument in football for use in physical education and with youth sport teams: Barquero-Ruiz Carmen, Kirk David, Meroño Lourdes, Arias-Estero José L; Perceptual and Motor Skills Vol 131, pp. 589-611 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1177/00315125231225579
"We could perform much better if we had specific training for girls" : impacts of the embodiment of tradition for elite-level karateka women: Turelli Fabiana, Kirk David, Fernandez Vaz Alexandre; Retos Vol 55, pp. 47-56 (2024); https://doi.org/10.47197/retos.v55.102364
If 'the medium is the message', what do students learn to do in NLP and GBAs within physical education?: Barquero-Ruiz Carmen, Kirk David; Curriculum Studies in Health and Physical Education Vol 15, pp. 40-57 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1080/25742981.2023.2216188
deportigualízate : enacting critical intersectional feminist pedagogy in Spanish PESTE: Castro-García Marina, Landi Dillon, Kirk David; Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy (2023); https://doi.org/10.1080/17408989.2023.2284927
Critical reflexivity and positionality on the scholar–practitioner continuum : researching women’s embodied subjectivities in sport: Turelli Fabiana Cristina, Vaz Alexandre Fernandez, Kirk David; Sports Vol 11 (2023); https://doi.org/10.3390/sports11100206
'I've always fought a little against the tide to get where I want to be'-construction of women's embodied subjectivity in the contested terrain of high-level karate: Turelli Fabiana Cristina, Vaz Alexandre Fernandez, Kirk David; Social Sciences Vol 12 (2023); https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12100538

More publications

Teaching

Back to staff profile

Teaching

Physical education and sport pedagogy
Curriculum change, including curriculum history
Curriculum design

Research

Back to staff profile

Research Interests

Professor Kirk has research interests in curriculum innovation and change, curriculum history, and physical education and sport pedagogy.

Current and Recent Projects

Research project: AHRC funded Early Career project Understanding the Gendered Roots of Sport:A study of female fandom and physical activity, 1945-2000, mentor and Co-I to Dr Stacey Pope, University of Durham, 2016-2019.

Book published August 2015 (co-author Professor Kimberly Oliver, New Mexico State University), Girls, Gender and Physical Education: An Activist Perspective, Routledge, publication June 2015. Associated research pilot project now completed, Adolescent girls valuing the physically active life: An Activist Approach, August 2015-June 2016. Papers presented from this project to the BERA Conference (September 2016), the SERA conference (November 2016), the AERA Annual Meeting (April 2017), and the European Conference of Curriculum Studies (June 2017) and are available by emailing david.kirk@strath.ac.uk .

Research Project (collaborator with Professor Patricia Vertinsky, University of British Columbia) Reconsidering the demise of the female tradition in physical education: its legacies and impact upon current practices in physical education for girls, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada funded, 2014-2018. Associated edited book published by Routledge in 2016, The Female Tradition in Physical Education: Women First Reconsidered, co-edited by Kirk and Vertinsky.

Research Project (co-Investigator with Professor Doune Macdonald et al., University of Queensland), External provision of the school curriculum: Local needs to global networks in Health and Physical Education, Australian Research Council funded, 2014-2017. Kirk will chair and contribute a paper to a research Symposium 'Outsourcing and the commodification of HPE: Turning the process inside-out' at the AIESEP Congress Guadeloupe November 2017. A special issue of the journal Discourse will report findings from this project in 2020.