Getting in touch with our feelings: the emotional geographies of gender relations in PETE

Abstract

This paper attempts to illustrate how embodied ways of knowing may enhance our theoretical understanding within the field of Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE). It seeks to illustrate how teacher educators' viewpoints and understanding of gender relations are inevitably linked to socially constructed webs of emotions, as much as to intellectual rationales. Indeed, the paper argues for the need for PETE research to transcend the dualistic divide of reason/emotion.It builds upon interview data from an investigation interested in illuminating the ways in which teacher educators develop their professional identities, using the lenses of gender equal opportunities and equity to examine the degree to which identities reflect 'managerial' or 'democratic' professional projects. In particular it analyses the way in which 'gender talk' seems to evoke strong emotional reactions, often 'negative' feelings, while at the same time, gender equity concerns remain on the periphery of the discipline, despite increasing research evidence which reveals damaging discriminatory learning environments. By using Hargreaves (2000) concept of 'emotional geographies' the paper contends that 'negative emotions' about gender issues are currently hegemonic on account of today's configurations of human relations in PETE, because the discipline's feeling rules construct 'negative feelings' as being reasonable.Acknowledging that professional identities are on-going projects, and that feeling rules can be reconfigured, the paper also seeks to illustrate how competing emotions may in the future lead to gender equality assuming a new role in PETE's 'regimes of truths'.

An analysis of the ideological work of the discourses of ‘fair play’ and moral education in perpetuating inequitable gender practices in PETE

“…The seeming lack of theoretical sophistication in the discourses of 'fair play'/moral education and of gender relations in the texts, combined with the strong 'feeling rules' about gender (Dowling, 2008), seem to result in limited ways to ascribe, enact and embody gender. We would argue that the rhetoric of teaching 'fair play' becomes entangled with narrow descriptions of gender to make arbitrary links between the two, which nevertheless are constructed as though they are necessary and natural links, and as a result, combine to do powerful ideological work in the distribution of gendered identities in PETE.…”

‘Are PE teacher identities fit for postmodern schools or are they clinging to modernist notions of professionalism?’ A case study of Norwegian PE teacher students’ emerging professional identities

“…Critical discourse analysis, individual in-depth interviews and group interviews have been used to generate data. (With regard to insights into how PE teacher educators frame their professionalism and construct gender relations in PETE see Dowling, 2006Dowling, & 2008. The data in the paper have been generated from focus group interviews (Kitzinger & Barbour, 1999) with a purposeful sample (Patton, 1990) of 12 PE student teachers in their final semester of a 3-year subject specialist PE teacher education degree, as well as a critical discourse analysis (MacLure, 2003) of the local PETE curricula.…”

Neither shaking nor stirring: a case study of reflexivity in Norwegian physical education teacher education

“…More specifically, based on a case-study of one quite typical institution delivering PETE in Norway, the paper explores the ways in which their habituses, in conjunction with their perceptions of the context in which they operated shaped the 'philosophies' and practices of 15 teacher educators at Nord University College (Nord UC). In so doing, we also try to shed a little more light on PETE in a country, Norway (Møller-Hansen, 2004;Dowling, 2006Dowling, , 2008Dowling, , 2011, and a region, Scandinavia (Annerstedt 1991;Larsson, 2009), where only a relatively small amount of research has hitherto been undertaken.…”