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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 (BME) 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 (2003) 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 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'.

Background: Education policies and curriculum documents in many European countries promote the social and moral development of young people as a cross-curriculum goal and place that goal at the center of the education process. All subjects, including physical education (PE) are required to contribute to the social and moral development of the children. Scholars have argued that PE and especially the PE teacher play a crucial role in the social and moral development of children. There is however little scientific evidence that underpins the positive contribution of PE to this development. Scholars also understand the social and moral domain in diverse ways. Little is known about how teachers themselves think about their responsibilities with respect to the social and moral development of their students through PE and how they understand and operationalize such curriculum goals. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how physical education (PE) teachers make sense of this formal curriculum goal and try to operationalize it. PE teachers tend not to be formally trained in didactics of social and moral development. In addition, the PE curriculum gives few guidelines that define social and moral development or how to accomplish this (if at all) but does require them to integrate this development into their teaching. We therefore used a social constructivist perspective with an emphasis on sense making to situate the study. Participants and setting: Participants teaching in different types of high school were recruited from Dutch urban, suburban and rural locations. In total 158 PE teachers participated in this study. Their teaching experience ranged from one to thirty-eight years. Data collection: Data were collected in three phases. Phase 1 was exploratory consisting of eight in-depth interviews. The results were used to construct an open-ended questionnaire that was answered by 55 participants (Phase 2). In Phase 3 we conducted 95 in-depth interviews with PE teachers to further explore themes that had emerged. Data analysis: The data were analyzed with the use of a qualitative data analysis package. We used a thematic analysis that was driven by both the data and the research questions to examine the combined data sets. Findings: The PE teachers unanimously constructed PE classes as places where social and moral skills should and can be developed. They equated social and moral development with the learning of social interactional skills. They differed however, in what they emphasized and the strategies they used to realize this curriculum objective. Conclusion: The PE teachers involved in this study actively worked to contribute to the social and moral development of their pupils by teaching and monitoring social ISSN 1740-8989 print/ISSN 1742-5786 online # 2013 Association for Physical Education http://dx.interactional skills. The commonalities in curricular practices found in this study and the individual differences together possibly reflect a globalized socialization of PE teachers into and through spor...