‘Physical Education’s First Lady of the World’: Dorothy Sears Ainsworth and the International Association of Physical Education and Sport for Women and Girls

Abstract

Dorothy Sears Ainsworth has received wide acclaim for her pioneering efforts in international relations that enhanced collaboration among female physical educators in the decades following World War II. As Director of Physical Education for Women at Smith College (1926–1960), Ainsworth became a global figure, traveling extensively and organizing the first international conference on physical education for women and girls in Copenhagen in 1949. This resulted in the establishment of the International Association of Physical Education and Sport for Girls and Women (IAPESGW), today counting over 400 members from 45 different countries. In this paper we (re)consider the largely hagiographical accounts of Ainsworth’s career and re-examine her contributions to the international stage in light of her maternalist views on female sport and physicality. Indeed, women’s difference from men dominated the discourse of many international women’s movements at this time. We consider what IAPESGW’s long-term governance by primarily white and wealthy women may have meant in terms of the organization’s focus and globalizing efforts and conclude that though Ainsworth’s essentialist approach ignored earlier feminist sporting movements, and would not outlast the more progressive winds of change in the 1970s, neither should her early contributions to establishing bonds among female physical educators globally be minimized.     

The School Sport Co-ordinator Programme: Changing the Role of the Physical Education Teacher?

Over the last decade or so, young people have increasingly become a focus of UK sport policy. Fuelled in part by concerns such as the increasing levels of childhood inactivity and obesity, and the lack of international success in sport, a plethora of policy initiatives aimed at young people have been developed. In April 2000, the government published its sport strategy document, A Sporting Future for All, pulling together all the threads of recent policies, and in it, restating its commitment to youth sport, sport in education, excellence and sport in the community. One such policy initiative, the School Sport Co-ordinator programme, is the focus of this paper. The School Sport Co-ordinator programme, currently being introduced into schools in England, is an initiative that involves two government departments (sport and education) and a number of other agencies, reflecting the government's current agenda to ensure 'joined up policy' thinking. It aims to develop opportunities for youth sport through co-ordinated links between PE and sport in schools, both within and outside of the formal curriculum, with those in local community sports settings. The essence of the School Sport Co-ordinator programme is to free up nominated teachers in schools from teaching to allow them time for development activities, specifically to encourage schools and community sports providers to work in partnership. This paper draws on data from an ongoing research project examining the implementation of one School Sport Co-ordinator partnership, 'Northbridge'. Drawing on in-depth interviews, it explores the perceptions of the newly established School Sport Co-ordinators of their changing role. The paper highlights some of the initial tensions and challenges for them in their task of working across different educational and sporting contexts.     

The Joinville School and the Institutionalization of a French-Style Physical Education, 1852–1939

Since the mid-nineteenth century, the Joinville School in France has worked to promote an innovative method of physical education, the French method, which was strongly marked by ideological and geopolitical challenges. Most of the French actors, whether they be military, doctors, scientists, or teachers, fought to defend France on the move. Physical education and its scholastic responsibility thus represented an original means to serve the national community and to give the country the necessary influence it required on the political and cultural international scene. If during the Second Empire, the Joinville School participated in the development of the physical instruction of French troops, during the third Republic, this officers' training school expanded the promotion of its method for physical education in schools. Among the challenges of this strategy, the actors for French physical education were faced with the organization of a common national teaching method as additional support for the promotion of a method that bore the mark of an eclectic philosophy. Until World War II, the Joinville School was a center for innovation that would spread practical physical education throughout France and Europe.     

The Alpine Club of Canada’s ‘Mountain Heritage’: Adventure and Advocacy in the Twentieth Century and Beyond

Abstract

Founded in 1906, the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC) was a key proponent of mountain adventure and advocacy. This paper examines the club’s annual camps, physical culture, and conservation involvement as indicators to understand the integration of mountaineering and parks in Canada in the twentieth century. It surveys the club’s origins and highlights its shifting agendas. The ACC mountaineering camps and classic alpine ascents invented a tradition for middle-class sport and tourism in mountain parks, particularly in the Rockies and Columbia Mountains. The club advocated for climbers but also for conservation in wild places. It participated in contested debates on parks and resource use as a stakeholder on public lands. The paper argues the ACC was a leading proponent of mountain pursuits, conservation, and tourism in a complex political ecology of engaged land use for sport and recreation intertwined with physical spaces and the social production of mountain parks in Canada. Adventure and advocacy were its legacy as well as education on the land. Based on archives, alpine journals, and other published sources, the paper illustrates an integration of people and places in landscapes of sport as well as contemporary mountain adventure, tourism, and conservation issues in Canada and internationally.     

Rethinking the ‘aspirations’ of Chinese girls within and beyond Health and Physical Education and physical activity in Greater Western Sydney

This paper aims to explore young Chinese girls’ aspirations and ideal environments for engagement in Health and Physical Education (HPE) and physical activity (PA) in Greater Western Sydney. Interviews are used to elicit these girls’ perceptions of their future and ideal environments in relation to HPEPA. Their data offer insights into key influences regarding what is thinkable, desirable and achievable in their HPEPA environments. Results showed dimensions of environments, such as social and pedagogical aspects, that are conducive to these girls’ aspirations in HPEPA (e.g. social support from parents, and functional built environment for HPE). This paper aligns with a strengths-based approach to understanding and recognising young Chinese girls’ perceived aspirations within their socio-cultural environment. In doing so, we discuss how feminism and femininity are positioned from a Chinese perspective that may provide alternative views to a post-feminist panorama in promoting advancement of all young girls in HPEPA. Results invite us to take into account some of the girls’ ambivalence towards being an ‘autonomous’ and ‘dependent’ modern Chinese young girl. This paper calls for a rethinking of how aspirations that shape young people’s future in HPEPA in much of the contemporary Western world are conceptualised in academic research.     

Foucault’s History of the Present: The Birth of the Games Concept Approach in Singapore’s Physical Education Curriculum

Abstract

The year 1999 saw a major shift in Singapore’s Physical Education curriculum when the traditional teaching approach in primary schools was replaced by a more game-like one, aptly known as the Games Concept Approach (GCA). Based on Foucault’s ‘History of the Present’ which intended to distinguish the kind of historical projects that brought this change, the focus is on tracing the forces that gave birth to the present-day practices and identifying the historical conditions which caused this shift towards GCA. Inspired by Foucault’s distinct elements of status, institutional sites and situation, the perspective of revealing a ‘history of the present’ on the birth of GCA in Singapore creates a better understanding of why it is still being taught in the PE curriculum.     

The role of task and ego-oriented climate in explaining students’ bright and dark motivational experiences in Physical Education

Background: A distinction is made in Achievement Goal Theory (AGT) between task-oriented (i.e. effort, intra-individual progress, and self-comparison) and ego-oriented (i.e. inter-individual progress and normative comparison) climates. Combining insights from AGT and Self-Determination Theory (SDT), studies in the PE context have shown that a task-oriented climate positively relates to need satisfaction, although the findings regarding the motivating role of an ego-oriented climate are inconsistent. Moreover, little is known about the role of task- or ego-oriented climates in explaining experiences of basic psychological need frustration.

Purpose: Grounded in AGT and SDT, the aim of the present study was to examine if experiences of basic psychological need satisfaction and need frustration can explain why task- and ego-oriented climates elicit positive and negative motivational outcomes in PE, respectively.

Research design: Cross-sectional study.

Method: A sample of 524 secondary school students (51.1% boys, M_age?=?14.51; SD?=?1.81) from five different secondary schools participated in this study. Students reported on their perceptions of task- and ego-oriented climates, motivational regulations, basic psychological need satisfaction, and need frustration, as well as positive and negative outcomes in PE. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate our objective.

Results: We found that a task-oriented climate had a strong and positive relationship with basic psychological need satisfaction, eliciting a bright pathway to autonomous motivation and affective attitude. An ego-oriented climate was positively related to basic psychological need frustration, eliciting a dark pathway to amotivation and boredom. A negative cross-path from task-oriented climate to basic psychological need frustration was also found, while no significant cross-paths were found from ego-oriented climate to basic psychological need satisfaction.

Conclusions: This study provides a better understanding of the mechanisms that explain why task- and ego-oriented climates shape students’ motivational experiences in PE lessons. It is suggested that a task-oriented climate elicits a bright pathway towards more optimal functioning, because it fosters experiences of need satisfaction and buffers against experiences of need frustration. In contrast, an ego-oriented climate is primarily positively related to feelings of need frustration and negative motivational outcomes. Practical implications for PE teacher training are discussed.     

‘A Potent and Pervasive Ideology’: Athleticism and the English Elementary School

This article demonstrates that the ideology of athleticism was an important feature of life in elementary schools throughout the country in the late Victorian and Edwardian era. It argues that the ideology which originated in the Victorian public school spread firstly to ‘Oxbridge’ and then to grammar schools before being adopted increasingly by elementary schools after the Cross Commission of 1888. It offers a detailed consideration of the arguments put forward in Colm Kerrigan's article ‘“Missing Men” and missing evidence’ (Soccer and Society 10, no. 6 [2009]: 897–902) and demonstrates using a variety of primary and secondary sources that athleticism was widespread in elementary schools. It draws on the views expressed by Professor G.T.P. Finn (‘Athleticism, football and schooling: “missing men”, misunderstanding evidence and own goals’. Soccer and Society 11, no. 3 [2010]: 897–902) that Kerrigan has a limited understanding of athleticism. It concludes that athleticism in the elementary school was an even more widespread ideology than previously thought and points to the need for further research in this area.     

Art,Horse Racing and the ‘Sporting’ Gaze in Mid-Nineteenth Century England: William Powell Frith's The Derby Day

This paper draws on social and art history, cultural studies and ‘gaze theory’ to explore how William Powell Frith's painting of Derby Day, and the various responses to it, shed light on the Epsom Derby horse race and the ways in which its multiple meanings as a mega-event were produced and exchanged in Victorian society. It continues the recent trend of using a wider range of visual methodologies to explore the history of sport. It begins by setting the painting in its cultural, social and racing context, and exploring how the painting was created by Frith. It moves on to explore some of its possible readings, and analysing some of the different gazes through which the meanings of the painting can be read, including those of the artist, the characters, the critics and the spectators visiting the work. In so doing themes such as class, gender, reception and spectatorship, the relationship between popular and elite culture, and the representation of workers, women and ethnic minorities are explored.     

Physical education,sport and the intersection and articulation of ‘modernities’: The Hanuman Vyayam Prasarak Mandal

This paper focuses on the problem of delimiting and contextualizing ‘alternative modernities,' and the way in which sport factors into the logic of delimitation. After postulating six ideal type alternative sportive modernities in India, the Hanuman Vyayam Prasarak Mandal is analyzed as the articulation of a type of modernity that is linked to liberal secular nationalism. By looking at both the development of the HVPM through time as well as the performance of yoga and mallakhamba in various international sporting and gymnastic events, a specific relationship between nationalist and transnational social imaginaries is examined. Finally, the HVPM is compared and contrasted with the sportive activities of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a militant Hindu nationalist organization. Through this comparison it is possible to see how similar configurations of sport and gymnastics articulate different modernities, and how these alternative modernities both intersect and diverge from one another.     

One Teacher’s Experience of Teaching Physical Education and Another School Subject: An Inter-Role Conflict?

Purpose: This study was situated within a longitudinal study of 5 teachers examining the realities of teaching physical education by determining the impact of individual dispositions and contextual factors on the career trajectories of postprimary physical education teachers in Ireland (Iannucci & MacPhail, 2017). One of these participants, Jane, was examined in this study to gain a greater understanding of the realities and tensions experienced by a postprimary teacher enacting 2 distinct sets of role expectations when teaching physical education and another school subject concurrently. Method: Data reported in this article were collected through a semistructured interview and living graph. An interpretative framework was used for analysis, assessing Jane’s perceived meanings of the identified critical incidents in relation to role theory. Results: Teachers timetabled with physical education and another subject concurrently may be expected to navigate and negotiate 2 distinctly different roles within the school community causing difficulty in assuming both roles simultaneously. Short narratives were used to convey 2 themes: (a) role prioritization and (b) role performance. Conclusion: The study results suggest that the already complex and multifaceted role of a school teacher (Richards, Templin, Levesque-Bristol, & Blankenship, 2014) seems to be further complicated when teachers are tasked with simultaneously teaching physical education and another school subject. With the presence of a role conflict management strategy such as role prioritization (Stryker, 1968), one can presume that teachers who are tasked with teaching physical education and another school subject may experience some level of role conflict.     

‘Being in your body’ and ‘being in the moment’: the dancing body-subject and inhabited transcendence

Sports studies is currently dominated by the intellectualist approach to understanding skill and expertise, meaning that questions about the phenomenological nature of skilled performance in sport have generally been overshadowed by the emphasis on the cognitive. By contrast, this article responds to calls for a phenomenology of sporting embodiment by opening up a philosophical exploration of the nature of athletic being-in-the-world. In particular, the paper explores the conceptualisation of immanence and transcendence in relation to the embodied practice of dance, engaging with Merleau-Ponty’s important insight that the body can be a source of transcendence. I also draw on data from in-depth qualitative interviews with professional contemporary dancers to explore dancers’ concepts of ‘being in your body’ and ‘being in the moment’, and to suggest that during the actual embodied practice of dance, dancers do not experience transcendence and immanence as they are conceptualised in philosophy. Rather, I argue, dancers experience a third mode of being that is somehow in-between these two binary terms. I have called this ‘inhabited transcendence’.     

Mixed messages: pre-service Health and Physical Education teachers’ understandings of health and the body and the expectations of the Australian curriculum

This paper explores how a cohort of pre-service Health and Physical Education (HPE) teachers from an Australian university describe and construct their understandings of health and the body. Given that the courses that these undergraduates take in their degree programme present different perspectives on health and the body, a relevant question is to what extent these perspectives adequately equip these future HPE teachers to successfully teach the recently released Australian HPE curriculum. The participants in this study were 14 pre-service teachers, 11 females and 3 males, aged between 18 and 26 at the time of the first interview. The data used for this paper were taken from a larger study and were generated through interviews, the analysis of two undergraduate course profiles and an analysis of the new National HPE curriculum. Results reveal that there are some dominant discourses in health-related courses that may have a significant impact on these students. The purpose of HPE, the role of the HPE teacher and the idea of the HPE teacher as role model are also discussed. The results suggest that pre-service teachers face several challenges and dissonances between what they learn during their undergraduate programme and what the Australian HPE curriculum expects them to teach. How pre-service HPE teachers think about and relate to health and the body is important in terms of how they think about their professional practice and the influence they may have on their future pupils.     

‘Necessary Cessation from Toil and Work’: Young Christian Workers and the Question of Sport on Sundays in Post-War Melbourne

Abstract

The Young Christian Workers (YCW) is an international movement for young Catholics, engaged through a method of education called ‘See, Judge, and Act’. From the 1950s to the 1980s, the Australian YCW became known for running campaigns on a range of social issues and the provision of services – including sporting events and competitions. In this paper, the development of the Australian YCW Football Association during the 1950s is explored, and the history of YCW members’ participation in public debates about the morality of Sunday sport, which culminated in a local referendum in the Melbourne suburb of Camberwell in 1959, is traced. Drawing on archival materials and interviews conducted with former young workers, the paper explores tensions within Christianity around the meaning of ‘leisure’, ‘idleness’, and Sunday as a day of observance and rest. This examination of the Melbourne debate of 1959 will show how religious tensions around Sunday sport were shaped by class, youth, and masculine identities.     

Marketing ‘Brand China’: Maintaining the Momentum – ‘The Middle Kingdom’ Resurgent and Resplendent

The multiplicity of manoeuvres that characterise modern China's geopolitical ascendancy and ambition illustrate political ingenuity used calculatedly with the clear intention of becoming invulnerable. Past recent humiliations are not to reoccur. In addition, ‘The Middle Kingdom’ is to be reincarnated: invincible imperialism pursued. The strategic plurality employed in complex compositional patterns is both imperial and historic in nature: the past is to be projected into the present and the future. The once ‘Great Game’ is now ‘The Great East Asia Game’! In the light of the Guangzhou Asian Games Triumphalism, there could be a ‘double entendre’ employed here of sizable significance. This essay considers the possibility.     

Military Sport in the Belgian Congo: From Physical Training and Leisure to Belgian-Congolese Records in Track and Field, 1945–1960

While the important role of several ‘muscular missionaries' in promoting sport has been thoroughly studied and discussed, less is known about the sports policy of the Force Publique (FP, Public Army) in the Belgian Congo. Therefore, for this article we have focused on military sources. Like the Catholic Church, the FP tried to establish a new order and, by doing so, shaped ‘new tribes' and new identities. In the military training camps – where the recruits lived together with their wives and children – they were physically drilled by means of Swedish gymnastics, fitness exercises and battle training. The choice of Swedish gymnastics was not a surprise, since Belgium was the Mecca of Swedish gymnastics until 1968. Additionally, the soldiers practised sports like football, volleyball, basketball, judo and track and field, as a kind of leisure. With regard to track and field, however, well-performing athletes were selected and displaced to the best training facilities. Some of these Congolese elite athletes, like Victor Mangwele, were able to break Belgian records during their participation in national and international competitions. It remains unclear, however, to what degree all these military athletes also became part of a ‘new elite'. In the eyes of the Congolese population, their performances could be seen in an ambivalent way: on the one hand they represented the disciplining policy of the colonial power, on the other hand they were idols showing the colonial power the prowess of the African population.