Physical education in Tunisia: teachers' practical epistemology, students' positioning and gender issues

Abstract

This paper explores gendered student learning in physical education (PE) viewed as a situated emerging process involving a triadic relationship between teacher, student(s) and forms of knowledge that are socioculturally bounded. It concerns gymnastic teaching and learning in Tunisia. It was conducted against the background of the Joint Action Studies in Didactics (JASD). Three Tunisian PE teachers having different expertise and experience and 12 male and female students with contrasted skill levels were observed within a gymnastics unit. Based on the video record of the lessons and on teachers' interviews, the findings stress the personal, institutional and cultural dimensions that shape the observed PE practices with special attention to the gendered content taught and learned. The use of the JASD framework highlights the intertwined processes during classroom interactions that influence the co-construction of gendered learning. It makes visible the interplay between the teacher's practical epistemology and the students' gender positioning and its consequence on inequalities in terms of students' learning and the maintenance of gender order in the gym.Keywords: Physical education; Joint action in didactics; Student's learning; Gender positioning; Differential didactic contract; Teacher practical epistemology IntroductionIn physical education (PE), as in many other school subjects, an increasing volume of gender studies over the past years have recognised that pedagogical practices reproduce gendered aspects of the cultural heritage of societies (e.g. Davisse & Louveau, 1998;Ennis, 1999;Erraïs, 2002;Evans, Davies, & Penney, 1996;Flintoff & Scraton, 2006;Kirk, 2010;Larsson, Fagrell, & Redelius, 2009;Penney, 2002;Wright, 1997). In this paper we focus on the relationships between day-to-day school PE and physical culture in Tunisia, with special attention paid to the gendered content taught and learned. With a departure in the French didactique research tradition (Amade-Escot, 2006) of Joint Action Studies in Didactics (JASD) (Ligozat, 2011), the study seeks to understand how teachers and students co-construct both

Commentary on research into learning in physical education: towards a mature field of knowledge

“…Importantly, this relational approach is again similar in intent to Amade-Escot et al's (2015) conception of didactique and pedagogy as articulated by Lusted (1986).…”

“…The golf lesson analyzed by Barker et al (2015) was a nice example of this pedagogical approach. Sometimes the demonstration is omitted or replaced with another visual cue such as a poster, as we saw in the handstandforward roll lesson analyzed by Amade-Escot et al (2015).…”

“…Ellsworth (1997, p. 2) informs us that 'all curricula and pedagogies invite their users to take up particular positions within relation of knowledge, power and desire' (my emphasis) and that 'pedagogy is a much messier and more inconclusive affair than the vast majority of our educational theories and practices make it out to be' (p. 8). The study by Amade-Escot et al (2015) that focused on gender positioning as a form of learning within PE was a good example of this. Certainly, the sociocultural learning theories discussed in this special issue explicitly recognize such messiness.…”

“…Commentary on research into learning in physical education 679 in a "goal-oriented pedagogy"' (Amade-Escot et al, 2015, p. 3, citing Zouabi, 2005. The fact that acrobatic gymnastics is important in Tunisian PE seemed something of a 'time warp' for me since such activities now find little space in the curriculum offerings of many Western countries.…”

Joint Action in Didactics and Classroom Ecology: Comparing Theories using a Case Study in Physical Education

“…As for JAD, it focuses on how teacher and student joint actions impact the in situ process of knowledge production in terms of student learning outcomes (Amade-Escot, 2000Amade-Escot, Elandoulsi and Verscheure, 2015;Leutenegger and Schubauer-Leoni, 2002;Ligozat, Wickman, and Hamza, 2011;Verscheure and Amade-Escot, 2007;Venturini and Amade-Escot, 2014). For this purpose, the JAD approach gives special attention to the specific knowledge content at stake, how it is embedded in the primitive didactic milieu, and how it evolves during didactical transactions.…”