The Next Chapter: Continuing the Dialogue

ABSTRACT

This article is the next chapter in the conversation about doctoral physical education teacher education (D-PETE) programs. The author challenges PETE faculty members to continue the dialogue started in this special issue about D-PETE programs.     

What is valued in friluftsliv within PE teacher education?—Swedish PE teacher educators’ thoughts about friluftsliv analysed through the perspective of Pierre Bourdieu

The value assigned to friluftsliv (activities similar to outdoor education) in physical education teacher education (PETE) and in the physical education (PE) syllabus in Sweden does not seem to result in the implementation of friluftsliv in the practice of teaching in Swedish schools. This study investigates how the identified values of friluftsliv, expressed in interviews with 17 PE teacher educators in Sweden, reflect struggles for legitimate and privileged knowledge in PETE. The exploration of friluftsliv within PETE reveals positions that appear to be an effect of the dominating logic of sport within Swedish PETE and the limited influence of the academic field. The educational consequences of the identified values are analysed and discussed from a socio-cultural perspective.     

Entering the Field of Physical Education: The Journey of Fifteen First-Year Teachers

Purpose: Given the significant challenges facing today’s physical educators, the purpose of this study was to examine the expectations of induction teachers and identify the factors in both their personal and organizational environments enhanced or constrained their assimilation into the field during their 1st year. Method: Using occupational socialization theory as a guide, data from demographic surveys and a series of formal interviews with participants at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year were inductively analyzed for theme development. Results: Results revealed positive acculturation experiences and unity regarding the purpose of physical education as preparing students to be fit for a lifetime. Barriers were noted to be family and personal crises, role conflict, isolation, marginalization, issues with classroom management and discipline, and difficulties in developing positive relationships with stakeholders. Enhancers were identified as positive interactions and rapport with students, colleagues, and administrators and favorable individual dispositions. Conclusion: Implications indicate a need for purposeful physical education teacher education training to proactively address these barriers during professional preparation as well as the creation of additional support systems for beginning teachers.     

Rethinking the Boundaries: Response

In his Keynote address, Dr. Kretchmar suggests that children who demonstrate an inability or unwillingness to play may have a ‘play disability,’ and thus offers interventions for remediation. In response, Oslin and Collier argue that due to cultural influences, it is more likely that physical educators are play disabled. Oslin and Collier share Kretchmar's sentiment that playing and valuing play is essential to becoming physically educated and living a fulfilling life. Recommendations are offered as a means of infusing play into PETE and physical education curriculums.     

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.     

It is only an intervention,but it can sow very fertile seeds: graduate physical education teachers’ interpretations of critical pedagogy

The role that school health and physical education (HPE) plays in the making of physically active and healthy citizens continues to be rearticulated within the field of HPE practice. In Australasia, for example, this is evident in HPE curricula changes that now span almost two decades with ongoing advocacy for greater recognition of socially critical perspectives of physical activity and health. This paper reports on one part of a larger collaborative project that focused on how HPE teachers understand and enact socially critical perspectives in their practice. The paper draws on interview data obtained from 20 secondary school HPE teachers, all of whom graduated from the same physical education teacher education (PETE) programme in New Zealand, a programme that espouses a socially critical orientation. The teaching experience of the study participants ranged from 1 to 22 years of service. The preliminary analysis involved deduction of common themes in relation to the research questions and then, drawing on the theoretical framework of Bourdieu [1990. The logic of practice. Cambridge: Polity Press], these themes were analysed in more detail to gain insight into how and why the graduate teachers’ expressed their particular understanding of HPE and critical pedagogy. The findings suggested that this PETE programme did have some impact on the participant teachers’ perceptions of physical activity and health, and the role of socially critical thinking. However, there was also evidence to suggest that many of them did not have a clear understanding of the transformative agenda of critical pedagogy. We conclude by suggesting that although this PETE programme did plant ‘seeds’ that had an impact on the graduate teachers’ awareness and thinking about socially critical issues in relation to physical activity and health, it did not necessarily turn them into critical pedagogues.     

Physical education preservice teachers’ perceptions of the subject and profession: development during 2005–2016

Background: During the socialization process when becoming a physical education (PE) teacher, the knowledge, perceptions and expectations of what it means to work as a teacher are developed. In this socialization, the initial acculturation phase is shown to be of the most importance, since individual PE teachers’ experiences during this phase are shown to have a long-lasting influence on their approach to and perception of the subject and the profession. Furthermore, research shows that most physical education teacher education (PETE) programmes are ineffective in altering these initial perceptions and beliefs during the programme. This inertia to change may resemble Bourdieu’s concept of habitus.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyse the background of PE preservice teacher students (PSTs) and examine their embodied perceptions and beliefs related to the subject and profession when they enrol. Specifically, the study focuses on their background characteristics, perceptions of PE and PE teachers, and whether their background and perceptions changed between 2005 and 2016.

Method: This study draws on a web-based questionnaire completed by 224 students (90 women and 134 men) enrolled in the PETE programme at a major university in Sweden between 2005 and 2016. The questionnaire used in this study addressed the PSTs’ experiences, views, beliefs and perceptions of PE and the PE profession, and it was completed during the first semester of respective students’ PE subject studies.

Findings: PE PSTs are a homogeneous group of students with similar backgrounds, experiences and perceptions of PE and their future profession as PE teachers. Participants suggested that important characteristics for a good PE teacher include possessing subject knowledge, having pedagogical competence and being considerate. A good PE lesson should be fun and inspiring, consist of physical activity and be adapted to all. Important goals for PE are to develop pupils’ character and promote healthy behaviours. The PSTs’ background characteristics and perceptions do not seem to have changed during the studied period, in spite of the fact that the structure of the PETE programme did change.

Conclusions: The homogeneous background among PSTs, with vast experience of sport and physical activity, implies that they will interact and engage with students with similar backgrounds and perceptions (i.e. habitus) during PETE. This may limit the potential influence of PETE and fail to prepare PSTs for the demands of their future profession. However, if the influences of acculturation were accounted for during PETE, the programmes could be better designed and better prepare PSTs for their future profession.     

Chivalric Education in the Middle Ages

Several authors (Dreher &; Ash, 1990; Fagenson, 1989, 1992; Hunt &; Michael, 1983; Kram, 1985; Newby &; Heide, 1992; Scandura, 1992) have emphasized the importance of mentoring in facilitating onc's progress through a career in management. This paper presents a mentoring model that combines the various factors impinging on mentoring and the associated outcomes in a compre hensive framework. In the model, a set of antecedent mentor and protégé characteristics, including demogaphics and traits. lead to certain mentoring functions, which subsequently result in specified outcomes. The stages of a mentoring relationship—initiation, cultivation, and redefinition—are explained. Mentoring functions. relate both lo career mobility and personal achievement and growth. Mentoring benefits al1 parties—protégé, mentor, and organization. The model also includes intervening variables that modify the relationships among antecedents. mentoring stages and functions, and outcome variable. The paper outlines implications of and guidelines for mentoring in sport and physical education organizations.     

Health(y) education in Health and Physical Education

Teachers in the school subject Health and Physical Education (HPE) need to be able both to teach health and to do so in a healthy (equitable) way. The health field has, however, met with difficulties in finding its form within the subject. Research indicates that HPE can be excluding, meaning that it may give more favours to some pupils (bodies) than to others [cf. Webb, L. A., Quennerstedt, M., & Öhman, M. (2008). Healthy bodies: Construction of the body and health in physical education. Sport, Education and Society, 13(4), 353–372.; Webb, L., & Quennerstedt, M. (2010). Risky bodies: Health surveillance and teachers’ embodiment of health. QSE. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 23(7), 785–802; Williamson, B. (2015). Algorithmic skin: Health-tracking technologies, personal analytics and the biopedagogies of digitized health and physical education. Sport, Education and Society, 20(1), 133–151], and thereby being unhealthy for unfavoured pupils. The purpose of this study is therefore to investigate how HPE teacher education students in Sweden interpret health in HPE and discuss possible implications for future education in the school subject. The study involves 81 Bachelor/Master theses, connected to the HPE school subject and examined at six different Swedish universities. All the student theses were examined in 2012. Of the identified theses, 30 can be related more or less directly to health in physical education. These are the ones further scrutinized here. The contents of the selected essays may be categorized on the basis of tests as tools to measure health/ill health/performance, the knowledge required to teach health and also health as part of pedagogy. In sum, the theses display a reproductive approach to the subject, which involves the risk that the subject will subsequently function as disciplining, standardizing and excluding for some pupils, especially for those who do not engage in sports in their leisure time. In order to develop HPE’s potential into becoming healthier and more equal, researchers, teacher education and teachers do not primarily need to perceive health from the activity and individual perspectives, but rather from a power relations and equity perspective aiming towards equality.