Dr Carla Nascimento Luguetti

Carla’s overarching research and teaching focus on topics of sport pedagogy and social justice. Over the past seven years she has focused on understanding activist approaches within sporting contexts. Specifically, her line of research aims at co-creating a pedagogical model for working with youth from diverse backgrounds. The intent is to use sport as a vehicle for assisting youth to become critically aware of their communities’ social issues.

Carla completed a PhD at the University of Sao Paulo in 2014. Her research explored critical pedagogy and feminist studies in order to co-create a sport program that better addressed youth from socially vulnerable backgrounds. In that time she participated as a visiting researcher for six months at University of Bedfordshire, UK, under the supervision of Professor David Kirk. In 2015–16, she did her post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Human Performance, Dance and Recreation at New Mexico State University, US, under the supervision of Professor Kimberly Oliver.    

She joined VU as a lecturer in 2018 and teaches a range of units in Health and Physical Education.

Carla’s line of research is underpinned by critical pedagogy and feminist studies. She has a significant publication track record in collaboration with researchers from all over the globe (US, UK, Ireland, Australia, and South America) in peer-reviewed journals and papers for international conferences. For example, since 2010 she has published one co-authored book, 7 book chapters and 16 peer-reviewed journal articles. Her publications cover a range of topics within her field. These include participatory and activist approaches to working with diverse youth, curriculum innovation and development through models-based practice.

Carla is interested in supervising or co-supervising postgraduate students who have an interest in HPE and sport pedagogy, participatory action research and social justice.