Contemplating [en]active curriculum: becoming health literate through Arts and HPE interconnection

This article asserts that the Australian Curriculum (AC) affords dimensioned opportunity to cultivate health literacy (HL) in and through interconnections and spaces between health and physical education (HPE) and the Arts. The term ‘health literacy’ emerged from public health scholarship, predominantly 1995-2015 (Sorensen, 2019). With HL being defined in the AC:HPE as an “individual’s ability to gain access to, understand and use health information and services in ways that promote and maintain health and wellbeing” (Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority (ACARA), 2020, p.8), this article seeks to articulate connections between ideas and scholarship underpinning predominant global definitions of HL and their synergies with curriculum conceptualisations of The Arts and HPE. The AC comprises three-dimensions (learning areas, general capabilities (GC), cross-curricular priorities) that “recognise the central importance of disciplinary knowledge, skills and understanding” as inherent to learning (ACARA, 2020, p.1). These three dimensions are positioned in a non-hierarchical and interrelated structure, creating space and aspiration for a mobilised and relational curriculum that holds integration and interconnectedness at its core (Macdonald et al., 2019). This article takes an initial look across two dimensions (the HPE and Arts learning areas, and their contextualised GCs) to ascertain where connective distinctions, definitions and descriptions inherent to HL exist or can be nurtured. In so doing, we also attend to ‘gaps’ and spaces of perceived paucity.