New (materialist) perspectives on becoming trauma-aware in physical education

There is an emerging expectation for physical education teachers to become trauma-aware. Yet despite some progress, how this process unfolds is not well understood. In this paper, we make a novel contribution to this area of scholarship by thinking about the socio-material processes through which teachers become trauma-aware in physical education. Drawing on new materialism, we develop an understanding of becoming trauma-aware that describes an increase in the capacity to attune to the agentic flows and relational encounters produced by assemblages. Drawing on existing research we then explore ways in which physical education can be re-assembled to produce better outcomes for trauma-affected young people. In doing so, we invite the reader to think about trauma, young people, teaching and learning in creative and productive new ways, and to understand becoming trauma-aware as a situated, non-linear process, characterised by experimentation and change. To close, we reflect on what new materialism can do to/for trauma-related teacher learning in the field and conclude by suggesting that to affectively respond to the socio-material complexity of childhood trauma requires multiple, heterogeneous teacher-becomings that emerge at different speeds, intensities and directions.