Skip to content | Change text size
 

Movement, Environment and Community - Research in the Faculty of Education

Our passion is sport, physical activity and outdoor recreation. Our particular focus is the study of movement, environment and community (MEC) and their interrelationships. Our interest in the study of movement, environment and community is driven by our desire to contribute to:

  • the promotion of individual health and wellbeing,
  • physically active and engaged communities, and
  • the care of natural environments and the sustaining of social environments that enable physical activity in various sports and outdoor recreations. 

Our study of the connections of movement, environment and community is inspired by the idea and practices of social-ecology; a broad theory that emphasizes the 'whole’ of human relationships, nature and the social and built environment. MEC research will make a unique and vital contribution to the social ecology of sport and outdoor recreation.

The theoretical frame of social ecology requires implementation. Practice is essential in 'walking the talk' and discourse having 'real grounds' in the everyday. Be it at schools, in the home or in active communities, we believe 'changed' learning based on authentic 'meaning-making'about movement, environment, community and social ecology occurs best via experiential education. Our interest in experiential education responds to the question of how learning in physical activity occurs by and through our bodies, in various movement experiences in a range of environments, places and natures. So, our research highlights the contributions of physical activity to health promotion, wellbeing and sustainable living via the study of movement experiences in, for example, play and games, commuting to school, journeying in nature, and in changing social forms of sport and outdoor recreation.

Again, experiential education is a 'whole' approach to education in formal and informal settings, and its research. Experiential education combines the meaning-making capacities of the human body in action in everyday practices and the learning-making capacities of the human mind as they are engaged in such movement experiences in different social settings, activity spaces and natural environments, MEC research will make a unique and vital contribution to developing the evidence base about the depth and value of experiential education – where theory and practice, mind and body, and rhetoric and reality are constantly in contact with each other. And in conversation!

Little is known about the social ecology and experiential education of sports, physical actvities and outdoor recreation. MEC aims to fill this gap through scholarly inquiry, rigorous research, a comprehensive and systematic research plan, and their implementation in our undergraduate teaching programs with the next generation of leaders, educators, coaches and policy-makers graduating in sport and outdoor recreation. Meanwhile, we believe education, community development, public policy and local and global populations suffer from this lack of knowledge and evidence. While MEC is committed to research and research-led-teaching, our undergraduates and postgraduate students will have the opportunity to play a major role in promoting and advocating for our communities' active health, wellbeing and sustainability.

MEC members, including postgraduate students, share different theoretical and philosophical perspectives, practical backgrounds and skills in sports, movement, outdoor and environmental experiences. We have expertise in different approaches to research, development of methodologies and a keen interest in how research is represented to the public via conventional and alternative means and mediums.

Find more information about...

We welcome inquiries from prospective undergraduate and postgraduate students, academics, organizations and any others who may wish to learn from and contribute to our distinctive MEC identity and purposes.

MEC aspires to the status of Research Node in the Faculty of Education as an 'incubator' of research into central challenges facing the future of Australia. Our MEC Research Group is situated in the heart of Monash University's dedicated 'Health and Wellbeing Precinct' and collaborates actively with other research programs in Education, Health Sciences, Ecotourism and Sports Management.