Crisis Discourse in Physical Education and the Laugh of Michel Foucault

The central argument in this paper is that talk of crisis functions as an important shaper of contemporary understandings of Physical Education, and in this sense becomes a means for intervention by 'experts' into the form and function of the institutional practices and understandings that work to define the field; in other words, talk of crisis is properly understood as crisis discourse. This argument carries an important implication in that when we attempt to intervene via the activities of 'expertise' in our institutional practices, especially when we do so within crisis discourse, we need to recognise that notions of control over where this intervention will lead are little more than illusory. Implicit here is a recognition that the current field of Physical Education, as it has historically emerged, is not given to us outside of our own construction of it and, yet, that field, though contingent on our thought and actions, possesses a certain objective density which imposes itself on us. Recognising this, we need to commit ourselves to practices which seek to change this field, while at the same time understanding that our change-oriented practices, too, will be dense with effects we may not comprehend until they have betrayed us. This attitude was called by Michel de Certeau ' the laugh of Michel Foucault '. By examining this phenomenon qua an examination of the way multiple, often conflicting discourses found their way into the popularly identified crisis in Australian Physical Education during the first half of the 1990s, this paper focuses on how crisis discourse that was invoked strategically (particularly by the socially critical 'left') as a catalyst for change tended to produce conservative outcomes due to the way particular historical themes tended to colonise the discursive spaces created. This historical case raises important questions about the relations we presently take up within and toward Physical Education whenever we wish to speak its 'truths', and provides a standpoint from which both existing understandings of the field and future emergences of crisis discourse may analysed.     

A Sense of Connection: Toward Social Constructivist Physical Education

In social constructivist educational theory, the classroom is seen as a community of learners. According to social constructivists, learning occurs through peer interactions, student ownership of the curriculum and educational experiences that are authentic for students. The purpose of this study was to investigate how teachers used social constructivist strategies to encourage student construction of knowledge and meanings, and how students constructed knowledge and meanings in two middle school physical education classrooms. A qualitative naturalistic design was used to collect data over a five-month period with two experienced middle school physical education teachers. Data included 11 weeks of observational field notes and interviews with teachers and students. Data were analyzed using cross-case and inductive analysis. Findings indicated that the teachers' strategies created a learning environment in which students actively constructed knowledge and meanings by making connections to their peers and by connecting physical education to their lives, their communities, and the real world. Students shared information, assumed leadership and responsibility, and became decision-makers. By connecting to their peers, students felt supported in their learning. This study offers additional findings in support of social constructivist pedagogy in physical education that encourages individual growth and social awareness in communities of learners.     

Ethics,politics and bio-pedagogy in physical education teacher education: easing the tension between the self and the group

In this paper, we argue that reflecting upon our personal experiences and the origins of our ethical and political beliefs can be useful to see that, as much as society has a strong influence on us, each of us has the capacity to influence society. Also we suggest that there exist intimate links between personhood and pedagogy. As such, through the use of bio-pedagogical passages, we examine the process of coming to the realisation of the need to develop ethical principles that enable us to contribute to society in universally beneficial ways through our teaching. Moreover, we explain that, as they try to help prospective educators understand their future role in society, physical education teacher educators (PETEs) ought to start with clear ethical principles, not just merely technical (or even scientific) ones. These principles, in turn, can serve as a guide for all pedagogical (read political) actions, both inside and outside the classroom. We close this paper offering viable guidelines as to how this can be done.     

Targeting Mr average: participation,gender equity and school sport partnerships

The School Sport Partnership Programme (SSPP) is one strand of the national strategy for physical education and school sport in England, the physical education and school sport Club Links Strategy (PESSCL). The SSPP aims to make links between school physical education (PE) and out of school sports participation, and has a particular remit to raise the participation levels of several identified under-represented groups, of which girls and young women are one. National evaluations of the SSPP show that it is beginning to have positive impacts on young people's activity levels by increasing the range and provision of extra curricular activities (Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), 2003, 2004, 2005; Loughborough Partnership, 2005, 2006). This paper contributes to the developing picture of the phased implementation of the programme by providing qualitative insights into the work of one school sport partnership with a particular focus on gender equity. The paper explores the ways in which gender equity issues have been explicitly addressed within the ‘official texts’ of the SSPP; how these have shifted over time and how teachers are responding to and making sense of these in their daily practice. Using participation observation, interview and questionnaire data, the paper explores how the coordinators are addressing the challenge of increasing the participation of girls and young women. The paper draws on Walby's (2000) conceptualisation of different kinds of feminist praxis to highlight the limitations of the coordinators’ work. Two key themes from the data and their implications are addressed: the dominance of competitive sport practices and the PE professionals’ views of targeting as a strategy for increasing the participation of under-represented groups. The paper concludes that coordinators work within an equality or difference discourse with little evidence of the transformative praxis needed for the programme to be truly inclusive.     

Busy doing nothing? Physical education teachers' perceptions of young people's participation in leisure-sport

Within the substantial body of research examining the professional knowledge of physical education (PE) teachers one particular area remains relatively under-explored: namely, their understandings of young people's participation in leisure-sport and the implications of this, if any, for the practice of PE. There are grounds for thinking, however, that in this aspect of their professional knowledge PE teachers might not be as conversant with patterns of participation—among young people, generally, and their own pupils, in particular—as one might expect. In order to examine this tentative hypothesis, the present study involved focus groups with a total of 29 PE teachers at six secondary schools in England. A central finding of the study was that PE teachers' perceptions of their youngsters' leisure-sport lives tended to be characterized by a blend of myth and reality. Many teachers, for example, underestimated the levels of participation in leisure-sport both of their own pupils and the 15–16 years age group, generally. Nevertheless, the teachers' observations regarding what amounted to growing and diversifying sporting repertoires among their pupils were, to a greater or lesser degree, commensurate with the profiles reported by the pupils, and with wider trends associated with the changing lifestyles and preferences of young people. The paper concludes by briefly locating this study of professional knowledge within the sociology of knowledge, while observing that the content and form of PE for Year 11 pupils at the six schools in this study appeared to be informed by the common-sense, everyday knowledge of PE teachers rather than by evidence from national or local surveys of young people or studies of their own pupils.     

‘Studentship’ and ‘impression management’ in an advanced soccer coach education award

The purpose of this study was to investigate how coaches perceived and responded to the content knowledge and assessment processes that they were exposed to during an advanced level soccer coaching award programme. In-depth interviews were conducted with six coaches who had successfully completed the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) ‘A’ Licence in the UK. Using the concepts of the ‘dialectic of socialisation’, ‘studentship’ and Goffman's (1959) work on ‘the presentation of the self’ as analytical pegs, the discussion highlights how the coaches were far from ‘empty vessels’ waiting to be filled. Rather, the findings reveal the active role that the respondent coaches played in terms of accepting, rejecting and resisting the knowledge, beliefs and methods espoused by the coach educators. Finally, perceiving of coach learning as a negotiated and contested activity is discussed in terms of its implications for existing and future coach education provision.     

Sport studies

The sport-for-development movement has grown exponentially in the last decade generating increasing academic attention. However, existing research has rarely sought the views of young people despite them being both the main target audience of initiatives and frequently the deliverers. This paper seeks to address young people's absence within research and advocate the importance of engaging them in sport-for-development debates to enhance understanding of current delivery and to improve policy and practice in the future. The paper examines Zambian young people's views of HIV/AIDS peer-led education delivered through sport considering particularly whether young people believe such interventions can encourage empowerment and subsequent behaviour change. The paper outlines the importance of improving understanding of how young people can begin to translate knowledge into agency. The paper concludes with the suggestion that change is more likely if peer-led education through sport programmes are combined with multi-layered interventions directed at all levels of communities.     

What spurs curriculum making in physical education? Four narratives of experienced teachers

Anchored in the narrative inquiry tradition, this paper examines commonly held motives about curriculum making from the perspectives of four experienced physical education teachers in Korea. Field texts were collected throughout by employing narrative research tools such as in-depth interviews, focus groups, class observations and documents analyses, and transformed into research texts using broadening, burrowing, and storying and restorying as suggested by Connelly and Clandinin. For experienced physical educators, this paper illuminates what motivates curriculum making as a narrative phenomenon storied and restoried over time. Different stories produced different motives of curriculum making, and a number of issues related to teacher development for curriculum making emerged.     

Gender constructions and negotiations in physical education: case studies

In Denmark as in other European countries, many girls, and especially Muslim girls, seem to lose interest in physical activities and sport with increasing age. However, in a Danish context, little is known about the reasons why girls drop out of sport and which role physical education (PE) plays in this process. In this article we present results of a qualitative study on gendered discourses and doing gender in a PE class at a Danish high school. Drawing on constructivist and post-structuralist approaches to gender and ethnicity, we explore the different opportunities of girls in PE based on in-depth interviews and video observations. Three case studies of three girls are the focus of this article: Nanna, the Danish ‘athletic girl’ who found a balance between (en)acting femininity and presenting herself as a competent athlete; Iram, the ‘Muslim girl’ whose position as a Muslim causes her to hide her sporting abilities and Ida, the Danish ‘normal girl’ who re-interprets PE and adapts it to her needs. These three girls act in and react to a discourse that emphasises competitive sport and is orientated towards male sport tastes and sport practices. The results of this study indicate that PE, with its focus on games and performances, meets the requirements and expectations of many boys but contributes to the decrease in sporting interests and activities among numerous girls.     

Understanding the rationale for preschool physical education: implications for practitioners' and children's embodied practices and subjectivity formation

This paper provides an overview of selected academic research literature that underpins contemporary preschool physical education. We highlight and interrogate diverse rationales and beliefs that serve to influence and structure preschool physical education in various forms. We speculate as to how preschool practitioners and children might engage in specific practices relative to these discourses. Our consideration of preschool physical education discourses relies upon a Foucaultian analysis of the major techniques of power and also raises possibilities of conceptualising subjectivity formation through his concept of the ‘technologies of the self’. Discourses related to motor skill development, play and physical activity, in particular, appear to be prevalent in the selected literature, along with a related pedagogical discourse concerning ‘structure and freedom’. These sometimes competing discourses arguably underpin competing agendas reflecting those who advocate supporting children's free play and those who propose more structured and interventionist practices in relation to young children's physical activity. We conclude that these diverse approaches lend themselves to interpretation and negotiation in the context of preschool physical education, with specific consequences for the embodied experiences and subjectivities of preschool practitioners and children.