The American "Alliance" of Health and Physical Education: Scholastic Programs and Professional Organizations, 1920-1950

Overview & Synopsis

From the 1920s through the early 1940s, school-based programs in both health and physical education--mandated by government legislation and hailed by the public--increased in scope and complexity. By 1937, the assumption of the interconnectedness of the two fields was institutionalized in the merger of the American Physical Education Association with the Department of School Health and Physical Education of the National Education Association to form the American Association for Health and Physical Education. This paper focuses on the role of health education, physical education, and public health professionals in the emergence and critique of scholastic health and physical education programs in the first half of the 20th century. (Contains 4 notes.)