“Dare to be physical”: Comparative educational philosophy and sports development

Within the emerging realm of sport development, this paper seeks to promote a praxis pedagogical model through a comparative and liberal educational philosophy. It achieves this through three pedagogical considerations of cultural context, sporting case studies and graduate attributes. Firstly, its cultural context shifts from critical assessment of international 'sport for development' and 'development for sport' to an appropriate local application of planning such strategies in the Tayside region. Secondly, in terms of sporting examples, it draws on broader notions of physical culture by using various sporting activities ranging from mainstream competitive sport to structured exercise and alternative or 'post'-sports. Thirdly, through uniting these strategies, this pedagogy project aims to develop the graduate attributes of Abertay's institutional habitus in terms of comparative thinking, short-term group collaboration, spontaneous creation and detailed analysis and action planning for a potential sport development in the local context. Overall, through fostering such a transformative habitus, graduates may 'dare to be physical' in more ways than one to potentially benefit local, regional and international contexts of physical culture development.