‘Activity choice’ and physical education in England and Wales

Abstract

This paper draws on data from a broader study, the central object of which was to explore the place of sport and physical activity in young people"s lives. More particularly, the paper reports the findings of 24 focus groups conducted with 153 15-16-year-olds in north-west England and north-east Wales in order to examine young people"s views towards activity choice in physical education (PE). In this regard, it is suggested that despite their deep-seated preferences for "traditional", games-dominated PE curricula and the constraints imposed upon them from the existence of a National Curriculum for PE and government policy over the past two decades, PE teachers continue to provide young people with a degree of activity choice in the later secondary school years. The 15-16-year-olds in this study considered activity choice to be a very positive feature of their experience of PE at Key Stage 4 and viewed it as a vehicle for greater enjoyment of and engagement with PE. It was also the case that the 15-16-year-olds appeared to attach a great deal of importance to the ways in which the activities provided them with the opportunity to engage in activities within PE that they also do in their leisure-time, and which they are likely to do in the future. At the same time, however, many young people expressed dissatisfaction with what they perceived as unnecessary and undesirable limitations on the number and range of activities made available to them. Restrictions on choice were particularly felt among girls and those from lower social class backgrounds who were evidently dissatisfied with what they saw as the over-representation of a small number of traditional team sports and activities in PE. It is concluded that if PE teachers and policy-makers want to increase their impact upon young people"s participation in PE 3 and "modernize" further the curricula provided for pupils, then they need to appreciate more adequately the significance of the twin processes of democratization and informalization, since both processes help explain young people"s growing preference for choice in PE and in other social contexts.

Surveillance and control in sport: a sociologist looks at the WADA whereabouts system

“…This argument, like many other aspects of WADA policy, is based on a highly individualized conceptualization of the elite athlete, who is presented as an asocial, The idea that athletes have a free choice about whether to participate in sport has, perhaps, some limited applicability in relation to young people who may be deciding whether or not to play sport, though even here we know that the choices of young people are heavily constrained, particularly by parents and peers (Coakley and White 1999, Smith 2006, Smith, Green and Thurston 2009. But the suggestion that elite athletes who are subject to the WADA whereabouts system can freely choose to withdraw from athletics if they dislike that system is simplistic and misleading.…”

Sex, sport and justice: reframing the ‘who’ of citizenship and the ‘what’ of justice in European and UK sport policy

“…This same sexual division of play between women's and men's, girl's and boy's preferences has been consistently reported in the academic research (see, for example, Collins and Kay, 2003;Hargreaves, 1994Hargreaves, , 2000Penney, 2002;Scraton and Flintoff, 2002;Flintoff, 2008;Smith et al, 2009;Wellard, 2007). In the UK, the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation and the Institute of Youth Sport, (Gorely et al, 2011) set out in detail the extent of the sexual division of play and report that ' [t]here is some evidence that many girls retain an interest in being physically active despite their progressive rejection of sport (e.g.…”

“…For example, Flintoff (2008) found a 'dominance of competitive sport practices' within school sport partnerships, that 'coordinators work within an equality or difference discourse' and that there was 'little evidence of transformative praxis needed for true inclusivity'. Further, Smith, Green & Thurston (2009) investigating '[a]ctivity choice' and physical education in England and Wales found that 'restrictions (were) particularly felt amongst girls (who were) dissatisfied with over-representation of a small number of traditional team sports'. They reported responses from children including 'It was like last week, they gave us the choice of basketball and rounders and there was twenty-odd of us that wanted to do dance and they said "No, sorry" ' ('Eve'), 'Lots of us enjoy dance don't we?'…”

Pre-service physical education teachers' beliefs about competition in physical education

“…Furthermore, in 24 focus groups conducted with one hundred and fifty three 15Á16 year-olds in north-west England and northeast Wales, Smith et al (2009) found that although the physical education teachers in the study provided their pupils with a degree of activity choice in later secondary school, many young people in the study, particularly girls and those from lower social class backgrounds, were dissatisfied with the over-representation of a small number of traditional team sports and activities in physical education.…”