‘I just treat them all the same,really’: teachers,whiteness and (anti) racism in physical education

This paper explores physical educators’ perspectives on race and racism as a first step towards disrupting whiteness and supporting the development of antiracist practice. With close links to sport, a practice centrally implicated in the creation and maintenance of racialised bodies and hierarchies, Physical Education (PE) offers an important context for a study of whiteness and racism in education. Using collective biography we examine physical educators’ narrative stories for what they reveal about the operation of whiteness and racism in PE. Teachers draw on narratives from curricula texts which uphold and reinforce notions of the racialised other, thereby reasserting normative, universal white knowledge. Their pedagogy is underpinned by a colour blind approach where race is ‘not seen’, yet essentialist and cultural discourses of race are nevertheless deployed to position particular racialised and gendered bodies as ‘problems’ in PE. Engagement with antiracism is limited to professional rhetoric within pedagogical practice.     

Exergames ‘as a teacher’ of movement education: exploring knowing in moving when playing dance games in physical education

Background: A fundamental dimension of school physical education (PE) is arguably movement and movement activities. However, there is a lack of discussion in the context of PE regarding what can be called the capability to move in terms of coordinative abilities, body consciousness and educing bodily senses.

Purpose: This article explores and articulates what there is to know, from the mover's perspective, when knowing how to move in specific ways when playing exergames (dance games). Taking different ways of moving as expressing different ways of knowing as a point of departure, the following questions are the focus of this article: (i) How do students move when imitating movements in a dance game, and what different ways of knowing the movements can be described in the student group? (ii) What aspects of the movements are discerned simultaneously through the different ways of knowing the movements? (iii) What aspects seem critical for the students to discern and experience in order to know the movements in as complex a way as possible?

Design and analysis: The theoretical point of departure concerns an epistemological perspective on the capability to move as knowing how with no distinction between physical and mental skills, and also knowing as experiencing aspects of something to know. The data in this study comprise video recordings of students playing Nintendo Wii dance games in PE lessons in a compulsory school (for children aged between 7 and 16 years) in a small Swedish town. There were three PE lessons with four different stations, of which one was Nintendo Wii dance games (Just Dance 1 and 2). In total, the videoed material covers three 60-minute PE lessons, recorded during the autumn of 2012 and in which just over twenty students participated. In the study, we have used video observation as a data collection method. Jordan and Henderson maintain that video observation removes the gap between ‘what people say they do and what they, in fact, do’ (51). To conduct a systematic and thorough analysis of how the students experienced the avatar's movements, we looked for moments where all the students and the avatar could be simultaneously observed. Two video sequences were chosen, showing four students imitating two distinct and defined movements which constituted the basis for a phenomenographic analysis.

Conclusion: The result of the phenomenographic analysis shows different ways of knowing the movements as well as what aspects are discerned and experienced simultaneously by the students. In other words, these aspects also describe knowing in terms of discerning, discriminating and differentiating aspects of ways of moving. By examining a certain exergame's role ‘as a teacher,' we have emphasized the capability to move, from the mover's perspective, as an intrinsic educational goal of PE while highlighting the need for systematically planning movement education.     

‘I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as aboriginal games’: a figurational account of how Indigenous students experience physical education

This article is about how Indigenous students from Year 7 to 10 at three government schools in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) experience PE. The research question being, how do Indigenous students experience PE at the schools selected for the research? A process oriented approach was used to answer this question. In particular, figurational sociology was chosen because of its usefulness in interpreting sociological problems processually. The idea of the figuration or configuration was utilized to represent human power relationships, as well as systems and processes. The study also drew upon the complimentary figurational concept of habitus. An accompanying methodology sympathetic to figurational sociology reconstructed the macro and micro levels of the figuration studied. This figuration being the PE provision across the three sites. The macro level depicts the contemporary social structure or ‘rules’ of the figuration and the micro level the individuals that exist within this social structure. Data were collected over a two year period using semi-structured interviews, school websites, school based documentation and wider ACT Education and Training Directorate system level documents. The research found that Indigenous students experience almost entirely Eurocentric PE that lacks acknowledgment of their own culture. The PE provided is an example of ‘superior’ knowledge characteristic of dominant groups. The research also showed that the habituses of key players such as principals, Health and Physical Education curriculum writers and teachers were pivotal as long-term processes in upholding Eurocentric PE content. The findings suggest that for Indigenous perspectives to be included in PE as stipulated in national level documentation, policy directives alone are inadequate. For meaningful change to take place alteration at the habitus level of the mentioned key players has to occur and such change requires a multi-faceted approach.     

Norms and materialities in physical education and health- ‘I feel that i cannot contribute enough in sport’

Many understandings about norms and norm criticism are based on imaginations of inclusion and exclusion as if values about right and wrong, and acceptable and non-acceptable behaviors belong to a world of relations that can be separated from embodied and physical things and practices. This preparatory study is based on interviews conducted with children with and without varied forms of disabilities. The aim of the study was to investigate how children describe their ability in relation to collaboration, identity, materialities, disability and norms within Physical Education and Health (PEH). The results from this study show that embodied and collaborative goal-oriented practices generate imaginations of community and belonging through a notion of contributing. The results indicate that informing, teaching, and learning about inclusion and exclusion do not naturally produce physical and embodied practices.     

‘Disable them all’: SENCO and LSA conceptualisations of inclusion in physical education

There is a propensity for academics and policy makers in Britain to use the terms integration and inclusion synonymously, possibly resulting in diverse interpretations of the inclusion principles laid out in the new National Curriculum. Much of the research available relating to conceptualisations of inclusion in physical education (PE) is from the perspective of teachers. Moreover, PE as a relatively unique learning environment is often neglected in much of the research that does analyse educational inclusion. In this paper, the key theoretical tools of cultural studies, in particular the concept of cultural hegemony, are used to analyse how special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) and learning support assistants (LSAs) conceptualise inclusion in mainstream secondary school PE in Britain. Semi-structured, individual interviews explored SENCO (n?=?12) and LSA (n?=?12) educational ideologies and experiences of SEN and inclusion in PE. Open, axial and selective coding was undertaken to systematically analyse (textual) data. The research found that most conceptualisations reflected a social ideology because they focused on how educational arrangements can be made to ensure that pupils with SEN have comparable learning experiences to their age peers. Emphasis was placed on the power and influence of PE teachers, and the importance of identifying the specific needs and capabilities of pupils with SEN, as ways of ensuring that an inclusive culture can develop and is maintained in PE. The paper concludes by arguing that PE teachers and LSAs need access to PE-specific and up-to-date guidance and learning targets so that they can use the influence they have over the norms and values of PE to cultivate an inclusive culture in that subject.     

‘It should be better all together’: exploring strategies for ‘undoing’ gender in coeducational physical education

Physical education (PE) remains the subject in coeducational schools that is most likely to be delivered in gender segregated sessions. Decisions to offer single sex lessons are often underpinned by discourses and practices associated with doing gender that emphasise differences in boys' and girls' attitudes, behaviours, abilities and experiences. This investigation employs the concept of ‘undoing’ gender to explore the possibility for alternative interpretations of the issues emerging in coeducation. Examples of ‘undoing gender’ included evidence of girls' and boys' engaging positively during activities, girls' identification of positive aspects of mixed gender, examples of boys' and girls' similarities and shared experiences and awareness of girl' capabilities. The paper concludes that the emphasis on gender difference in explaining problems associated with coeducation such as teasing, harassment and exclusion can mask the ways that these practices are embedded within the structure and organisation of PE and provides recommendations for working towards gender integration.     

Authentic inquiry-based learning in health and physical education: a case study of ‘r/evolutionary’ practice

Background: Greater understandings about how progressive pedagogies are interpreted and practiced within schools will be required if international calls to enhance relevance and meaning in Health and Physical Education (HPE) are to be realised. Little is understood about how inquiry-based units of work connected to real-life issues are enacted, engaged with, and generate deeper knowledge within a HPE context.

Purpose: This study explores learner outcomes and perceptions of engagement with an inquiry-based unit of work, Take Action, that aimed to provide young people with an opportunity to critically reflect on movement, investigate an issue important to them, and enhance their capacity to enact positive change for themselves and others.

Participants and setting: Forty-four students and three teachers from two secondary school settings participated in the research. Both schools were located in relatively low socio-economic status areas in southern metropolitan Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Data collection and analysis: An exploratory and evaluative study design that employed naturalistic inquiry, using qualitative semi-structured interview data, observational data, and analysis of learner-produced artefacts were used. Analysis drew upon authentic learning frames to explore elements of knowledge construction through disciplined inquiry and real-life application.

Findings: Take Action provided a unique experience of HPE for the students and teachers who engaged with it. It was a collaborative, learner-centred inquiry-based experience that most learners found to be engaging and authentic. Both teachers and learners lacked the foundational knowledge of the discipline and a sound understanding of a critical-inquiry process that would have allowed them to deconstruct and reconstruct new ideas in deep interconnected ways.

Conclusions: More support for teachers and students is needed to legitimate these types of approaches within broader curriculum contexts to support student learning. Specifically, foundational understandings of: socially critical approaches to critical inquiry that serve to enhance knowledge relating to learner-identified topics; learning intentions and authentic assessment and how these might align with inquiry-based learning; forming connections with external experts to support learners early in an inquiry process; and how to extend explorations and elaborations within the constraints of a congested and contested curriculum.     

‘I don't read fiction’: academic discourse and the relationship between health and physical education

The relationship between health (H) and physical education (PE) has long been the subject of debate. Recently, however, the obesity crisis has raised this relationship to a new level of attention. At the risk of simplifying things, there are two ‘positions’ that seem to characterize the discourse regarding this new relationship. One position considers that the main mission of PE should now be the ‘war on obesity’. Advocates for this instrumental position tend to do research, using interventionist strategies focusing on (H)PE as a site for the promotion of physical activity. The other position argues strongly for the foregrounding of educational purposes for (H)PE and tends to pursue research by means of sociocultural research paradigms such as phenomenology, poststructuralism or critical theory. Importantly, these ‘positions’ draw on different literatures and discourses. Seldom do the advocates of these two positions speak to each other and, if and when they do, they seem to speak different languages. In this paper, I discuss the notion of academic discourse and explore, with some examples from conferences, how the conventions of academic discourse are (mis)understood and accordingly confound the development of more considered responses to the relationship between health and PE.     

‘Let them see a different path’: social attitudes towards sport,education and development in Sāmoa

Drawing on ethnographic data collected over 12 months of field research, this paper contributes to the growing body of literature on sport for development (SFD) by giving voice to alternative constructions of the educative potential of SFD. It does this by exploring the social attitudes of youth, educators, community leaders and government officials in the Pacific island nation of Sāmoa towards sport, education and development. Imagining sport to be like ‘school outside’, my Samoan interlocutors construct sport as an educative platform that prepares young ‘academically unfit’ men to engage an increasingly global political economy in ways classroom education cannot. Viewing international sport as a form of ‘development education’, my interlocutors perceive the educative value of SFD as being rooted in the potential for sport to help move underperforming boys into transnational flows of remittances to the family. In this way, Samoans perceive sport as enabling ‘at risk’ youth to serve their families, to learn English and to become globally minded, ultimately equipping them with the skills needed to achieve transnational futures once beyond their reach. In allowing a grassroots understanding of SFD to emerge, the paper challenges the assumption that the institutions of sport and education are compatible, mutually reinforcing and complementary. Specifically, viewing sport as an alternative to schooling may serve to reintegrate underperforming young men back into an education-to-employment pipeline, but it also carries important implications for the de-skilling of youth and the perpetuation of their positions of marginality. The paper calls into question the role of education and sport in and for development, highlighting important questions that SFD stakeholders should consider.     

Reconceptualising elite athlete programmes: ‘undoing’ the politics of labelling in health and physical education

High-performance sport is a big business, with nations such as Australia and New Zealand dedicating hundreds of millions of dollars in the development of facilities and in creating sporting centres of excellence. Historically, high-performance sport and elite athlete programmes (EAPs) were regulated to an extra-curricular space in schools or local communities, but over the last couple of decades, schools in Australia and New Zealand have introduced EAPs into health and physical education (PE). Recent work has begun to explore the rationale for these programmes and their educational priorities, but little research has explored how the elite athlete body is being constructed within this curriculum space. In this paper, I consider two interrelated problems. The first concerns the conflicting discourses of winning in high-performance sport versus getting everyone healthy and active in health and PE. The second involves an explanation of how the elite athlete body is being constructed in these programmes. I argue the juxtaposition of the elite athlete body as disciplined, attractive and healthy to other bodies as lazy, unattractive and unhealthy renders the other bodies as pathological or resistant to disciplinary institutions of the school. In particular, I focus on the ways in which young people's bodies are conceptualised within EAPs in relation to recreation, health, PE and other curriculum spaces. Throughout this paper, I provide examples to illustrate how EAPs may perpetuate normative ways of thinking that legitimatise elitism in schools. I propose that under radical reform, EAPs may have the potential to provide educational value and opportunities to students. I conclude by offering the cultural studies curriculum model that retains sport and desirable educational outcomes for health and PE as an alternative to elite athlete or talent development models.     

‘I just can’t bear these procedures,I just want to be out there working with children’: an autoethnography on neoliberalism and youth sports charities in the UK

This paper uses an autoethnography to recount my experiences with SportHelp, a UK youth sports charity. Using a layered account format, which jumps through time and space, I demonstrate the extent to which neoliberal values have influenced the continuity and change of SportHelp. This paper does not constitute an attack on the charity, its staff, nor the charity sector. The focus is on how the wider neoliberal context shapes how SportHelp operates. The findings are analysed in terms of Foucault’s (2008, The birth of biopolitics. Lectures at the Collége de France, 1978–79. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan) notion of governmentality by examining SportHelp’s monitoring and reporting practices, as well as the managers’ use of New Public Management discourse. The conclusion reflects on the extent to which neoliberal governmentality, though in some instances beneficial for SportHelp, ultimately does more harm than good. This paper, by offering an ‘insider’s view’, adds to the literature calling for a change in how policy makers and funders shape the current hypercompetitive socio-political landscape. Charities should be supported, not discouraged, to develop holistic programmes that move beyond ‘economic rationales’ and are capable of addressing the multifaceted needs of their service users.     

‘Singled out because of skin color … ’: exploring ethnic minority female teachers’ embodiment in physical education

There is a significant lack of diversity within the teaching population nationwide that reflects historical, political, and institutional racialized inequality. In the context of physical education, ethnic minority teachers often report feeling ‘different,’ marginalized, and struggle to negotiate the dominant school culture they feel they do not belong to. Purpose: To explore how race and gender intersect in the lived experiences of ethnic minority female PE teachers in predominantly white schools in the United States. Methods: This study used narrative and visual research methods. Results: Participants often felt isolated and uncomfortable in their educational contexts, actively seeking out other ethnic minorities to make meaningful connections and validate their lived experiences. Discussion: The intersection of race and gender in participants’ embodied identities reflects sexist and racist systems in which white privilege is positioned as normal or universal. PE and PE teacher education programs must actively work to disrupt and destabilize these norms.     

‘It's not like you are less of a man just because you don't play rugby'—boys' problematisation of gender during secondary school physical education lessons in New Zealand

Despite clear messages from current physical education (PE) curricula about the importance of adopting socially critical perspectives, dominant discourses of gender relating to physical activity, bodies and health are being reproduced within this school subject. By drawing on interview data from a larger ethnographic account of boys’ PE, this paper aims to contribute to our understanding of boys’ experiences of gendered discourses in PE, particularly by acknowledging boys not only as docile or disciplined bodies but also as active subjects in negotiating power relations. In the analysis of the data, particular emphasis is placed on whether the boys recognise the influence of gendered discourses and power relations in PE, how they act upon this knowledge and how they understand themselves as gendered subjects through these particular discourses/power relations. Using Foucault's (1985. The use of pleasure: The history of sexuality, vol. 2. London: Penguin Books) framework related to the ‘modes of subjectivation’, this paper explores boys’ problematisation of dominant discourses of gender and power relations in PE. In summary, these boys perform gendered selves within the context of PE, via negotiation of gendered discourses and power relations that contribute to an alternative discourse of PE which creates spaces and opportunities for the production of more ethical and diverse masculinities.     

‘I just want to be me when I am exercising’: Adrianna's construction of a vulnerable exercise identity

This study explores the social and dynamic aspects of the concept ‘exercise identity’. Previous research, mainly in psychology, has documented a link between exercise identity and exercise behaviour. However, the process of identity formation is not straightforward but rather something that can change with time, context and interaction with others. Subsequently, the present work is informed by a social constructivist approach that views exercise identity as a social product and the formation of it as a social process. Our case study of ‘Adrianna’ examined through a biographical narrative analysis how such an identity may be constructed through interaction and over the life course. Three themes were identified; Adrianna's relationship to (1) significant others, (2) her body and (3) sociocultural norms and expectations. Reflecting this fluidity of exercise identities, we suggest the alternative concept ‘vulnerable exercise identity’ to better understand the subtler dynamics of exercise identity formation and development. Adrianna's case is presented as a ‘recognizable story’, representative of the struggle many people face when trying to become more physically active in contemporary western societies.     

‘When an old cricketer leaves the crease’: bittersweet reflections on examination awards in physical education

The paper reflects on the development of examination awards in physical education from a predominantly autobiographical research perspective. The paper draws on experiences and reflections from inside examinations as a teacher, part of the policy and implementation process and document author and outside examinations as a researcher of the aspirations of awards and policy enactment in schools in Scotland. This combined perspective proceeds via a largely chronological appraisal of school and national policy developments allied to analysis from a wider academic review of progress. Despite early enthusiasm by students and many teachers the review highlights the problems of announcing policy rather than engaging with the ongoing detail of policy problems. This approach has led to variable progress and a lack of boldness in making learning suitably personalized with closer connections between practice and theory informing teaching and assessment. Furthermore, through the adoption of rote learning and assessment procedures, teachers have become complicit in affirming that while greater educational goals are achievable their particular practices are unlikely to realize these goals. In order to avoid further regression it is argued that examination awards need to unlock practice problems through engaging with research evidence which assists in understanding better the complex components of authentic practice, practice and theory integration and how increased use of digital technologies can personalize learning and enliven teaching and assessment. Without this occurring, examinations in Scottish physical education represent something akin to a pyrrhic victory, where expanding policy provision has left behind rather underwhelming learning gains and where teachers’ sense of agency is curtailed by a messy combination of difficult to rectify professional concerns.     

Tinkering through transition: on ‘doctoring’ as an early-career academic in physical education and sport pedagogy

This article addresses the notion of ‘making it’ as an early-career academic in physical education and sport pedagogy. In it, we draw on the tradition of material semiotics to reflect on our shared journeys from doctoral student to beginning scholar and beyond. By attuning ourselves to the relationality, materiality and precariousness of our experiences, we offer an answer to the question of what it takes to ‘make it’ as an early-career academic by advocating the practice of ‘making do’ or ‘doctoring.’ We develop this argument, first, by describing the narrative methods we used to conduct our inquiry and by explaining the material-semiotic ideas we used to explore the stories it generated. Then, we tell tales of our transitions from higher degree research student to early-career academic, focusing specifically on our ongoing, collective efforts to make do. In our discussion, we explore these narratives and attend to three features of our actions and activities as early-career academics; namely semiotic relationality, material heterogeneity and the precarious processes of heterogeneous engineering through which we sought to make a career in our field. We conclude by encouraging beginning scholars in physical education and sport pedagogy to become sensitive to these aspects of their own agency, and to experiment, experience and tinker together in ways that are attentive, inventive, caring and persistent.     

Promoting schoolchildren’s self-esteem in physical education: testing the effectiveness of a five-month teacher training

ABSTRACT

Background: Schoolchildren’s personality development is considered a central goal of physical education (PE). With regard to the relationship between psychological well-being and global self-esteem over the life course, the promotion of positive self-esteem is an issue of particular significance. Past research revealed that PE taught with an individualized teacher frame of reference (iTFR) and a reflexive teaching style is associated with positive effects on facets of children’s perceived sports competence. However, it remains an open question whether this teaching styles has the potential to promote positive self-esteem.

Purpose: The present study investigated whether a five-month teacher training, aimed to enhance the teachers’ iTFR and their reflexive teaching style in PE, has a positive effect on students’ perceived sports competence and their global self-esteem. To analyse the implementation quality, changes in students’ perceived iTFR and perceived reflexive teaching style were investigated.

Method: A total of 21 teachers were assigned to either an intervention group (n?=?13), receiving the five-month teacher training, or a control group (n?=?8) consisting of regular teaching without teacher training. The teacher training encompassed five three-hour consecutive sessions during which the teachers acquired theoretical and practical knowledge about the promotion of competence perceptions in PE with a reflexive teaching style and an iTFR. Between the sessions, the teachers were instructed to implement an iTFR and a reflexive teaching style into their own PE classes. To evaluate the effects of the teacher training, their students’ (N?=?315, 53.7% girls, M_age?=?13.2 y, SD_age?=?1.3 y) perceived teaching style (iTFR and reflexive teaching), perceived sports competence and global self-esteem were measured with paper-pencil questionnaires at three measurement points (pre, post and follow-up).

Findings: Linear mixed effect models showed that students of the intervention group reported an increase in their teachers’ reflexive teaching style, but there were no changes with regard to iTFR. With regard to students’ perceived sports competence and global self-esteem, there were significant interaction effects between time and group over a period of eight months (from pre-test to follow-up), indicating positive effects on these self-concept dimensions due to the teacher training.

Conclusion: The present study indicates that a long-term teacher training supports PE teachers to implement teaching styles with the aim to promote students’ self-concept. Furthermore, the findings lead to the assumption that a more pronounced iTFR in combination with an enhanced reflexive teaching style has the potential to positively influence schoolchildren’s perceived sports competence and global self-esteem.     

Investigating the place and meaning of ‘physical education’ to preschool children: methodological lessons from a research study

Preschool physical education has not been extensively researched. Furthermore, research in physical activity and physical education rarely seeks young children's perspectives. The current paper focuses on one aspect of a post-structural study concerned with investigating the place and meaning of ‘physical education’ to practitioners and children at three preschool contexts in Scotland. The paper details the research methods employed to investigate the children's perspectives. It aims to encourage and assist other researchers to include young children in qualitative research related to physical education and physical activity. Furthermore, it is proposed that elements of the research approach taken, and methods and resources employed, may be transferable to other contexts, and therefore may assist in engaging other diverse populations in research related to physical education, physical activity and sport.