The focus of this special issue is how learning occurs in physical education (PE) practice in relation to different movement cultures in various contexts. The basis for the special issue is the Invited Symposium held at the AIESEP World Congress 2014 in Auckland, New Zealand, entitled Physical education–a subject for learning? The symposium revolved around learning in PE and the presenters, in line with a Swedish Didactics of Physical Education research tradition, were inspired by research in didactics and what in a wide sense can be called a sociocultural perspective of learning. In relation to learning, Wertsch (1998, p. 24) states that:‘The task of a sociocultural approach is to explicate the relationship between human action, on the one hand, and the cultural, institutional and historical contexts in which action occurs on the other’. Researchers from other countries were also involved in the special issue in order to attract and include scholars from a wider research community. The special issue accordingly aims to bring scholars from different countries together in order to explore learning in PE and what is considered as valuable knowledge in different movement cultures.