Physical education as an aesthetic-ethical educational project

Abstract

Commencing with a discussion of the various conceptions of education for the development of humanity, this essay articulates four essential vectors of educational processes -epistemic, ethical, aesthetic, and political, as they are instantiated in Physical Education. Drawing on philosophical literature, it is argued that the sporting activities that typically comprise physical educational curricula can afford opportunities to experience and to open the athletic self to epistemic, political and especially aesthetic notions, and not merely ethical ones, as recent scholarship has tended to focus on. This essay explores the four vectors in the context of the modern urban self.

Bodily knowledge beyond motor skills and physical fitness: a phenomenological description of knowledge formation in physical training

“…Breivik, 2014), Michael Polanyi's (1958) tacit knowledge (e.g. Ávila da Costa, McNamee, & Lacerda, 2014;Nyberg, 2014) and Marcel Mauss' body techniques (e.g. Andersson, Östman, & Öhman, 2013) useful in attempts to understand how individuals learn sport skills and create embodied knowledge within physical activities.…”

Educação Física: possibilidades de uma educação estético-ética

“…É consensual no seio do nosso grupo de estudo que a sensibilidade estético-ética se aprende e se educa. Um olhar sobre a educação física que a equacione como um projeto estético-ético requer, contudo, níveis elevados de envolvimento, engajamento e conhecimento da realidade que se experiencia, de modo a que a pessoa se encontre disponível para os estímulos pedagógicos aos quais é submetida 43 :…”

“…Tal olhar incorpora na educação física elementos de uma perspetivação estético-ética já discorrida por vários filósofos, enquanto espaço de oportunidade a experiências autênticas que reconfiguram a nossa sensibilidade ética, bem como de de experiências de natureza ética que reconfiguram a nossa sensibilidade estética [21][22][23] . Para melhor esclarecimento sobre as conceções de estética e de ética do autor, bem como da relação de interdependência entre a estética, consultar: Ávila da Costa L, McNamee MJ e Lacerda TO 24 .…”

Embodying Industrial Knowledge: An Epistemological Approach to the Formation of Body Knowledge in the Fitness Industry

“…More recently, in the context of physical education, Michael Polanyi's (1962) concept of tacit knowledge and Marcel Mauss's (1979) notion of body technique have been used in attempts to understand how individuals learn bodily skills and competences through and in movements and exercise (e.g., Andersson & Östman, 2015;Andersson, Östman, & Öhman, 2013;Ávila da Costa et al, 2014;Nyberg, 2014). Polanyi (1962) captured the concept of tacit knowing as follows: it "is not known in itself but is known in terms of something focally known" (p. 88).…”

“…Practical knowledge has been a prominent issue within sports science and physical education for approximately ten years. Many of the recent epistemological discussions on practical knowledge are contextualized within school curriculums (Azzarito & Solmon, 2009; Ávila da Costa, McNamee, & Lacerda, 2014;Evans, Davies, & Rich, 2009;Shilling, 2010), the field of elite sports (Breivik, 2014), coaching children and young people (Andersson & Östman, 2015), the education of physical education (PE) teachers (Kårhus, 2010;Nyberg & Larsson, 2017), adult recreation (Brown & Penney, 2013), or have been more generally related to the institutions of physical education and philosophical traditions (McFee, 2010;Stolz, 2014). Fewer epistemological discussions of physical activities are framed by the economic interests of the sports and fitness industry.…”