Fit for the job? How corporeal expectations shape physical education teachers’ understandings of content, pedagogy, and the purposes of physical education

Abstract

Background: People often expect physical education teachers to look fit and athletic, to do lots of physical activity, and to eat well. While ample research exists on physical education teachers' bodies, relatively few scholars have investigated how physical educators relate corporeal expectations to broader ideas about subject content, pedagogy, and the purposes of the school subject. Aim: The specific aim of the paper is to identify the assumptions about content, pedagogy, and educational purposes that teachers make when they talk about a perceived need for physical educators to look fit and athletic. Method: To frame our work theoretically, we draw from a Swedish didaktik of physical education tradition and employ Bakhtin's concept of speech genres, and Wertsch's concept of privileging. Our empirical material consists of transcripts generated from 6 focus group and 6 individual interviews (24 teachers in total, average age of 40 years, average teaching experience 11 years). Findings: Data suggest that when teachers use an 'athletic-looking teacher as healthy role model' speech genre, they tend to privilege: (1) a particular version of health as subject content that involves not being too overweight and maintaining physical functionality in sports. This content is based on biomedical conceptions of health which foreground exercise, eating and weight, and a pathogenic reduction of risk; (2) particular pedagogies in PE that put the teacher at the centre of the pedagogical situation, and; (3) a certain educational purpose in PE, which is to educate citizens for healthy lives through participation in sport. With respect to this purpose, increasing body weight enters the genre as a potential obstacle for educational success. Discussion: The findings raise questions concerning appropriate curricular content and its relation to teacher identities. They suggest that learning possibilities may be missed when certain content, pedagogies, and outcomes are privileged. The findings also indicate how wider voices are implicated in the speech genre. Conclusion:The paper is concluded with reflections on the possibility for change regarding expectations of physical education teachers' bodies and pedagogies.

Making sense of health in PE: conceptions of health among Swedish physical education teachers

“…Ambivalent and contradictory positions in relation to discourses of health and obesity are also reflected by the PE teachers in our previous work (Barker et al. , 2021a, b). Our research suggests that PE teachers tend to see health as involving mainly physical properties.…”

“…The interview material used as data in this paper were generated within a larger project exploring discourses of body, health and weight among PE teachers (see Barker et al. , 2021a, b; Quennerstedt et al. , 2021).…”

Critical engagement with digital health: A socio-material analysis of physical education teachers’ digital health mind maps

“…For example, despite a willingness of our participants to engage critically with digital health technologies, there was evidence that discourses and practices around bodywork – disciplining, monitoring and ‘improving’ bodies – were dominant in a number of the teachers’ digital health engagements. The dominance of bodywork narratives has long been reported among PE teachers, even among those exposed to ‘counter’ discourses (Barker et al, 2021). When analysing these tensions through a new materialist lens, we can see how these discourses can lead to strong negative affects, for example feelings of guilt and obsession.…”

Identification of Implementation of School Health Education Through Physical Education

“…As a subject that teaches about healthy living habits, PE teachers should not behave unhealthy. These findings are reinforced by the results of another study that alcohol addict teachers will lose their credibility and PE teachers who are seen smoking are not entitled to talk about health in front of students [13].…”