Playing the ‘Race’ card? Black and minority ethnic students' experiences of physical education teacher education

This paper reports on a study that explored black and minority ethnic (BME) students' experiences of physical education teacher education (PETE) in England. Widening the ethnic diversity of those choosing to enter the teaching profession has been a key policy objective of the Training and Development Agency—the government agency responsible for teacher education—for some years. However PETE programmes, designed to produce specialist physical education (PE) teachers to work with secondary age (11–18 years) pupils, reveal significant and enduring levels of under-representation of BME candidates, compared to other subject specialisms. The study reported here used semi-structured interviews and questionnaires with 25 BME participants from five universities involved in PETE in England. The findings show that BME PETE students share many of the characteristics with their White counterparts, being young, sporty and with a desire to improve PE experiences for future generations. However, in other ways, their experiences reveal the significance of ‘race’ ethnicity, and religion and how these are interwoven with gender to position them as ‘other’ in PETE spaces and within schools. Skin colour and religious dress were significant to stereotyping and everyday interactions that served to position them as ‘out of place’, particularly evident in practical activity sessions and on teaching placements. ‘Race’ and ethnicity as part of their professional education was at best a marginalised discourse, at worse, reproduced a deficit perspective of BME pupils’ and their schooling. The paper concludes by arguing for a critical analysis of the construction of Whiteness through PETE.     

Working through whiteness,race and (anti) racism in physical education teacher education

Background: The persistent gaps between a largely white profession and ethnically diverse school populations have brought renewed calls to support teachers' critical engagement with race. Programmes examining the effects of racism have had limited impact on practice, with student teachers responding with either denial, guilt or fear; they also contribute to a deficit view of racialised students in relation to an accepted white ‘norm’, and position white teachers ‘outside’ of race. Recent calls argue for a shift in focus towards an examination of the workings of the dominant culture through a critical engagement with whiteness, positioning white teachers within the processes of racialisation. Teacher educators' roles are central, and yet, while we routinely expect student teachers to reflect critically on issues of social justice, we have been less willing to engage in such work ourselves. This is particularly the case within physical education teacher education (PETE), an overwhelmingly white, embodied space, and where race and racism as professional issues are largely invisible.

Purpose: This paper examines the operation of whiteness within PETE through a critical reflection on the three co-authors' careers and experiences working for social justice. The research questions were twofold: How are race, (anti) racism and whiteness constructed through everyday experiences of families, schooling and teacher education? How can collective biography be used to excavate discourses of race, racism and whiteness as the first step towards challenging them? In beginning the process of reflecting on what it means for us ‘to do own work’ in relation to (anti) racism, we examine some of the tensions and challenges for teacher educators in PE attempting to work to dismantle whiteness.

Methodology: As co-authors, we engaged in collective biography work – a process in which we reflected upon, wrote about and shared our embodied experiences and memories about race, racism and whiteness as educators working for social justice. Using a critical whiteness lens, these narratives were examined for what they reveal about the collective practices and discourses about whiteness and (anti)racism within PETE.

Results: The narratives reveal the ways in which whiteness operates within PETE through processes of naturalisation, ex-denomination and universalisation. We have been educated, and now work within, teacher education contexts where professional discourse about race at best focuses on understanding the racialised ‘other’, and at worse is invisible. By drawing on a ‘racialised other’, deficit discourse in our pedagogy, and by ignoring race in own research on inequalities in PETE, we have failed to disrupt universalised discourses of ‘white-as-norm’, or addressed our own privileged racialised positioning. Reflecting critically on our biographies and careers has been the first step in recognising how whiteness works in order that we can begin to work to disrupt it.

Conclusion: The study highlights some of the challenges of addressing (anti)racism within PETE and argues that a focus on whiteness might offer a productive starting point. White teacher educators must critically examine their own role within these processes if they are to expect student teachers to engage seriously in doing the same.     

Narratives from the road to social justice in PETE: teacher educator perspectives

Developing teacher education programmes founded upon principles of critical pedagogy and social justice has become increasingly difficult in the current neoliberal climate of higher education. In this article, we adopt a narrative approach to illuminate some of the dilemmas which advocates of education for social justice face and to reflect upon how pedagogy for inclusion in the field of physical education (PE) teacher education (PETE) is defined and practiced. As a professional group, teacher educators seem largely hesitant to expose themselves to the researcher's gaze, which is problematic if we expect preservice teachers to engage in messy, biographical reflexivity with regard to their own teaching practice. By engaging in self- and collective biographical story sharing about ‘our’ teacher educator struggles in England and Norway, we hope that the reader can identify ‘her/his’ struggles in the narratives about power and domination, and the spaces of opportunity in between.     

Telling physical education teacher education tales through pedagogical case studies

This paper analyses two pedagogical case studies (PCS) from a multidisciplinary perspective to highlight the problems of theoretical knowledge in tertiary physical education teacher education (PETE) programmes, school-based physical education (PE) practice and continuous professional learning (CPL) in PE. We argue that a critical view of tertiary PETE and PE teacher educator CPL practice or practices is particularly important if PETE programmes want to develop future PE and current teacher practitioners who are transformative agents. In setting up the pedagogical case study accounts, we recall common conversations about the bodies of knowledge in tertiary PETE programmes that have been positioned as problematic. The accounts highlight the existence of an artificial divide between PE educators as theory generators and both pre-service PE teachers and school-based PE practitioners as theory appliers. We suggest that part of the reason why this divide exists can be attributed to a general misunderstanding of theoretical and practical knowledge that have been wrongly compartmentalised into ‘theory’ and ‘practice’, and hence erroneously taught as isolated entities without any connection or direct link with each other, or the former considered to be less relevant and perhaps even irrelevant in practice.     

Physical education teacher education in Norway: the perceptions of student teachers

A feature of academic literature on physical education teacher education (PETE) is the expectation that it can and should impact upon student teachers' beliefs and prospective practices in some significant ways. This is despite research over the last 20 years or more alluding to the apparent failure of PETE to ‘shake or stir’ (Evans et al., 1996) what might be termed the (typically conservative and conventional) pre-dispositions of student and early career PE teachers. In this article, we examine the perceptions of PE student teachers in Norway in order to ascertain just what it is that makes them so resistant to change and, for that matter, such infertile ground for sowing the seeds of reflexivity. The study involved semi-structured interviews with 41 PE student teachers from the three routes through teacher education available at Nord University College (Nord UC). Among the main themes identified in the data were the PE students' perceptions of: the purposes (and ostensible benefits) of school PE and PETE as well as the nature of PETE itself (including subsidiary themes of sporting and teaching skills, other ‘competencies’, school placements, mentoring and mentors, PETEs' (physical education teacher educators) teaching styles and the students teachers' relationships with the PETEs). The article concludes that, as far as the students at Nord UC were concerned, the significance of PETE revolved around the programme's efficacy in developing the sporting skills and teaching techniques they viewed as central to their preparation for teaching. The minimal impact of the more theoretical aspects of PETE appeared to be partly attributable to the students' perceptions of PE as synonymous with sport in schools and partly to their particularly pragmatic orientations towards PETE. In this vein, the students viewed experience as the most important, most legitimate ‘evidence’ on which to base their beliefs and practices and were resistant to the ‘theory’ of teacher education, rationalising their tendencies to select the evidence that suited them.     

Do as we do and not as we say: teacher educators supporting student teachers to learn on teaching practice

This paper reports data from a larger study into the ways in which Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) students engaged in professional learning during teaching practice (TP) in Ireland. The study comprised one umbrella case study of Greendale University, schools and PETE students that consisted of five individual cases: tetrads of PETE student teacher, cooperating teacher (CT), University tutor (UT) and School Principal (SP). Each tetrad was defined as a unique community of practice located within the wider structures of school, education and university policies on teacher education. Data were collected over one academic year using qualitative research methods and grounded theory as a systematic data analysis tool.

Findings indicate that in each of the five cases, support for PETE student learning was, to some degree, dysfunctional. In particular, it became evident that there were two conflicting teacher-learning curricula in operation. The official curriculum, expressed in policy and by SPs, UTs and CTs (also referred to as mentors), valued a PETE student who cared for pupils, had a rich pedagogical content knowledge, knew how to plan for and assess pupils’ learning, valued reflection, and was an active member of a community of practice. The unofficial but essentially more powerful enacted curriculum, encouraged PETE students to draw upon their own resources to learn pedagogical content knowledge in an isolated and unsupported manner.

The data highlight the force of the unofficial curriculum and the ways in which PETE students were guided to the core of the dysfunctional community of practice by untrained CTs (mentors) and untrained UTs. PETE students in this study learned to survive in a largely unsupportive professional learning environment and, just as theories of social reproduction intimate, indicated that they would reproduce this practice with PETE students in their care in the future.

The findings suggest that in cases similar to those studied, there is a need for teacher educators in Ireland, (in both universities and schools) to critically interrogate their personal practices and implicit theories of teacher education and to engage in training for their role. There is also evidence to suggest that PETE students in Ireland could benefit from the development of school–university partnerships that act as fundamental units of high quality professional learning. In the cases studied, this may have led to a stronger focus on the intended or official curriculum of TP, led by the revised maxim: ‘Do as we say and as we do’.     

Reflecting on the moral bases of critical pedagogy in PETE: toward a Foucaultian perspective on ethics and the care of the self

In teacher education and in physical education teacher education (PETE), the possibilities and pitfalls of critical pedagogy (CP) for transforming society have been frequently debated. From these debates, it has become quite clear that the lines separating ‘technocrats’ from ‘radicals’ are so strongly drawn that limit the advance of PETE. In the spirit of collegiality, we offer an alternative approach to CP based on Foucault's genealogical work on the History of Sexuality. It promotes a pedagogical perspective toward the development of ethics and the care of the self. We argue that this approach, far from discrediting what non-critical pedagogues do, can not only advance the practice of CP, but also open up new ways of conceptualizing PETE that are worth considering both by critical pedagogues and by the members of other pedagogical camps. We discuss the implications of this approach in the personal, social–professional and political spheres.     

Teacher or coach? How logics from the field of sports contribute to the construction of knowledge in physical education teacher education pedagogical discourse through educational texts

The main purpose of this paper is to focus attention on educational texts as central conveyers of discourses of sport into physical education teacher education (PETE) and by extension into physical education (PE). A considerable volume of research suggests that sport and games continue to be dominant elements of curriculum and practice in contemporary PE. Given the issues of masculinity, physicality and performativity resulting from such continuing sport-focused PE practice, it is relevant to question how such practices are discursively produced or reproduced. In this regard, one area has received only scant attention, namely the potential influence of educational texts used in PETE. Using the theoretical frameworks provided by Michel Foucault, Basil Bernstein and Norman Fairclough, this paper considers educational texts as important contributors to the discursive construction of knowledge in PETE, and thus also as a central resource for studying—and challenging—those discourses that influence on the PE teachers' perceptions of PE and their choices when it comes to the organisation of the PE class. This paper is based on a thorough examination of Danish PETE course documents listing educational texts prescribed by teacher educators for PETE programmes in Denmark. Several of the prescribed educational texts are published by private organisations with sporting interests, such as Team DK and The Sports Confederation of Denmark. This paper conducts a discourse analysis of these texts in order to illuminate how specific social rules regulate their content and involve specific constructions of the learner, the teacher and the relation between them. The paper's findings underline the need for an increased awareness among those who engage in PE practices of the ways in which discourses shape our thinking, and of the potential dangers that lie in the transfer of particular meanings and values as they are constructed in educational texts.     

Toward a critical race pedagogy of physical education

ABSTRACT

Background: A critical race theory of education has a been a popular framework for understanding racial inequities teaching and teacher education. Furthermore, it has served as the foundation for critical race research methodologies and critical race pedagogy, which are meant to address racial inequity via research and teaching, respectively. With regard to critical race pedagogy, there has been no specific conceptualization for the preparation of physical educators.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a critical race pedagogy of physical education teacher education (PETE).

Key Concepts: In the paper, critical race theory and critical race pedagogy are highlighted as the conceptual roots of a critical race pedagogy of PETE. In doing so it offers a critique of resource pedagogies and their conceptualization in PETE. Critical race theory has been described as a scholarly movement that seeks to uncover and dismantle systemic racism while rejecting incrementalism. Critical race pedagogy is an approach to teaching that is informed by critical race theory and womanism. A critical race pedagogy of PETE builds upon previous conceptualization of critical race pedagogy by offering the (a) recognition context; (b) the value of Black self-reliance; (c) and the value of the Black body as its foundations.

Discussion and Conclusion: A critical race pedagogy of PETE adheres to a post-White orientation. As such, this approach to teaching recognizes that Black physical education involves Black people and Black places without subordinating or comparing them to White people and White places. It is also a challenge for Black scholars and teacher educators within PETE to focus their attentions, intentions, and efforts to the sustaining of Black educational institutions and the training of Black physical educators for Black communities. Thus, I acknowledge context within the post-White orientation allowing for an appropriate reorienting of a critical race pedagogy of PETE to meet the needs racially minoritized communities globally.     

From PE experiences to PE teaching practices? Insights from Scottish primary teachers' experiences of PE,teacher education,school entry and professional development

Morgan and Hansen suggest that further research is needed to explore how non-specialist primary teachers approach and teach physical education (PE) based on their personal school PE backgrounds, teacher education experiences and ongoing professional development. This paper adopts Lawson's socialisation model, a theoretical framework subsequently used by many other researchers, to explore how primary teachers' experiences in various contexts ‘shape [their] knowledge and beliefs about the purpose of physical education, its content and teaching approaches’. Examining teachers' beliefs and attitudes towards PE is arguably important as it highlights how they approach the profession and enact particular teaching practices. We examine the views of 327 non-specialist primary teachers who participated in a postgraduate certificate in primary PE run by the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. This article reports findings from the baseline data of our longitudinal research—arguably crucial in ascertaining teachers' starting point and useful in monitoring the programme's impact. Our findings suggest the prevalence of negative PE experience during primary and secondary years, which we considered part of Lawson's ‘acculturation’ phase. Experiences during initial teacher education (ITE) or ‘professional socialisation’ showed that teachers were only given a basic starting point, which was inadequate for teaching PE effectively. The initial teaching experience or ‘organisational socialisation’ stage also presented major challenges for teachers who endeavoured to apply knowledge and skills acquired during ‘professional socialisation’. We suggest that how teachers' conceptions about PE are formulated and the accounts of challenges they encountered upon school entry are vital for the design and delivery of effective ITE and PE-CPD. Additionally, these findings underpin the need for more critical and reflective learning experiences at all levels of PE.     

Developing principles of physical education teacher education practice through self-study

Background: The articulation of specific principles of teacher education practice allows teacher educators to make explicit the beliefs, values, and actions that shape their practice. Engaging in processes to articulate the principles that guide practice is beneficial not only for teacher educators and their colleagues but also for students. There are, however, few examples of principles that guide physical education teacher educators' practices. Self-study of teacher education practice (S-STEP) methodology offers one way of examining and articulating principles of practice. In this study, I make connections across several S-STEP research projects I have conducted individually and with colleagues, and share the principles that guide my practice with the physical education teacher education (PETE) community.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to articulate my principles of practice using S-STEP. Specifically, I ask: (a) How can the articulation of my principles of practice reflect broad understandings of PETE? and (b) How can sharing principles of practice encourage debate and discussion amongst members of the PETE community? To what extent do the principles articulated have resonance for others?

Participants and data collection: Six published self-studies as well as the raw data from those studies provided the data for this research. The raw data used in those studies consisted of self-generated data and data generated by others. Self-generated data consisted of written reflective journal entries gathered over five years and recorded audio conversations with two critical friends. Data generated by others consisted of semi-structured interviews conducted with two cohorts of pre-service teacher candidates: one consisting of 10 pre-service primary generalist teachers the other of 9 pre-service physical education specialists. Three interviews were conducted with each participant. Exit slips (informal evaluations) were also gathered from the specialist cohort.

Data analysis: First, elements of the previously conducted self-studies were synthesised to identify general themes and outcomes that represented principles of practice. Second, in several instances, the raw data were revisited to verify and contextualise quotes and excerpts, and consider the extent to which the data captured the principles that were being articulated.

Findings: Three central principles were identified that shape my understanding of a pedagogy of PETE: (a) building community is the foundation of practice, (b) not just modelling – explaining and reflecting upon modelling, and (c) identity matters. Identifying these principles has enabled me to better enact social constructivist approaches to learning, make explicit my personal and professional knowledge to myself, students, and colleagues; find meaning in my practice, and; begin sharing my partial understanding of practice with others in the teacher education community to generate debate and discussion.

Conclusions: Self-study encourages teacher educators to share their knowledge so that it may be discussed, challenged, and critiqued to further collective understandings of teacher education practice. In this spirit, these principles are not offered as an exhaustive list of all that guides PETE practice, but as suggestive of possibilities that might reflect shared understandings of teacher education and thus have the potential to influence policy.     

Learning to teach sport education: investigating a pre-service teacher’s knowledge development

The pre-service teacher (PST) learning process has been claimed to include multiple and complex forms of learning because various areas of knowledge growth occur at the same time. In the Sport Education (SE) literature, there has been a noticeable dearth of research regarding how PSTs learn, interpret and deliver the model. While several studies report PSTs having experienced SE prior to the formal study being carried out, to our knowledge, only one study has followed PSTs through a series of learning experiences. In this study, we used the three-level model of learning as a framework to investigate a PST’s continuing process of learning to teach SE as part of a PETE program and while teaching during the school placement component of the PETE program. The study was guided by the question, ‘How does a PST’s knowledge of teaching and learning SE develop?’ This study reports on one physical education PST learning to teach SE. The learning experience was composed of four PETE courses (two content courses and two school placements) divided into five phases. Data collection employed five semi-structured interviews, coursework and a focus group. Data were analyzed using a hybrid approach of inductive and deductive theme development. Results revealed that the PST progressively developed conscious awareness and understanding about teaching and learning SE. The comprehensive learning experience made the PST develop understanding of teaching and learning SE that reflected knowledge on an abstract level. Studying the relationships between SE concepts, while connecting them with knowledge from various PETE courses, the theoretical foundation of SE became accessible. We encourage physical education teacher educators to allow for a continuing growth of understanding where PSTs develop knowledge through various SE learning and teaching experiences tailored around their needs and concerns.     

The gendered emotional labor of male professional ‘freesurfers’ digital media work

Abstract

Male professional ‘freesurfers’ are paid to live an aspirational lifestyle and communicate this through their digital media work. In this article I argue that a ‘stoke imperative’ championed by the surf industry necessitates emotional labour. Stoke is surf vernacular for a clustering of feeling thrilled, joyful, pleased, happy, optimistic, excited and satisfied. The surf industry manufactures and commodifies stoke to profit from it. Emotional labour is often assumed to be what women are ‘naturally’ predisposed to and ‘better at’. It is found that male professional freesurfers are competent at employing strategies for doing emotional labour when doing digital media work, such as micro-celebrity. However, this involves negotiating expectations, traits, and values of masculinity. It is also found that digital media technologies direct a professional sport ‘technosoma’ that networks emotional labour for profit. The article extends a small body of literature on how emotional labour is practised by men in sport.     

Developing teachers’ pedagogical identities through a community of practice: learning to sustain the use of a student-centered inquiry as curriculum approach

ABSTRACT

This collaborative self-study explores how educators’ pedagogical identities developed in the process of learning to use a Student-Centered Inquiry as Curriculum (SCIC) approach in activity settings within a community of practice (CoP). Participants included a university professor, college instructor, postdoctoral student and doctoral student. Data included 16 weekly field notes and debriefings following observations, teacher artifacts, 16 weekly collaborative group meetings, and 3 90-minute interviews per teacher. Culture, values, beliefs and professional background were critical for the development of the teachers’ pedagogical identities in the process of learning to use a SCIC approach within a community of practice. These experiences created for some, places to further develop their ideas about teaching, whereas for others they caused great discomfort and a sense of personal loss. The CoP facilitated the development of the teachers’ pedagogical identities, changing positionalities, and negotiating culture, values, beliefs and professional backgrounds.     

‘Just open your eyes a bit more’: the methodological challenges of researching black and minority ethnic students' experiences of physical education teacher education

In this paper we discuss some of the challenges of centralising ‘race’ and ethnicity in Physical Education (PE) research, through reflecting on the design and implementation of a study exploring Black and minority ethnic students' experiences of their teacher education. Our aim in the paper is to contribute to ongoing theoretical and methodological debates about intersectionality, and specifically about difference and power in the research process. As McCorkel and Myers notes, the ‘researchers’ backstage'—the assumptions, motivations, narratives and relations—that underpin any research are not always made visible and yet are highly significant in judging the quality and substance of the resulting project. As feminists, we argue that the invisibility of ‘race’ and ethnicity within Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE), and PE research more widely, is untenable; however, we also show how centralising ‘race’ and ethnicity raised significant methodological and epistemological questions, particularly given our position as White researchers and lecturers. In this paper, we reflect on a number of aspects of our research ‘journey’: the theoretical and methodological challenges of operationalising concepts of ‘race’ and ethnicity, the practical issues and dilemmas involved in recruiting participants for the study, the difficulties of ‘talking race’ personally and professionally and challenges of representing the experiences of ‘others’.     

Public Emotions and their Personal Consequences: The Nationalizing Affects of the Australian Football League since 1990

This article examines the historical and emotional consequences of the Victorian Football League's decision to ‘go national’. Many saw the emergence of the Australian Football League (AFL) as a threat to the authentic attachments of supporters. As many localized social practices were ‘rationalized’, however, engagement with the League increased across Australia. This article suggests that this success can be explained, in part, by the ways in which public representations of the AFL provided new points of identification for supporters. Drawing on recent work by critical theorists of emotion, I suggest that the already passionate culture of Australian rules supporting has been reworked by the animation of nationalistic attachments and the increasingly intimate representation of players in Australian public life. Ironically, though, these new modes of representation have opened the AFL out to heated debates about the emotions of the players themselves. The contested emergence of the crying AFL player in Australian public life since 2000 is both a product of these shifts and an example of the unruliness of identification and idealization. Attachments to players in the language of national identity, I suggest, are psychically volatile because they are connected to how supporters understand their own identities, lives, and losses.