The place and meaning of the field of PE in Turkish young people's lives: a study using Bourdieu's conceptual tools

Abstract

This paper draws on Bourdieu's notions of habitus, social field, and capital to provide a more complex examination of the place and meaning of physical education in Turkish young people's lives. Two secondary schools comprised of students from quite distinctive social, cultural, and geographical locations were involved in the study. Collected data from several focus group discussions, individual interviews, and class observations was analysed in relation to the themes of 'social class', 'gender', and 'students' positions within the social field of 'physical education'. The findings demonstrate how the national Turkish physical education (PE) curriculum became interpreted and deployed by each school in distinctive ways. Both schools promoted disciplinary and performance-based physical activities in the PE social field, even as they used different physical activities and had different reasons for privileging these types of activities. Physical education was used by the middle-upper-class school to reify and enhance the symbolic, cultural, and social capital of young people, who were regarded as future intellectual, business, and government leaders within Turkish society. In comparison, the school based in the poor suburb used physical activity as a means to create 'good' and 'productive' citizen-subjects. However, in using particular physical activities to create certain types of subjects with institutionally valued habitus (including physical 'abilities' and personal and social attributes), both schools ended up privileging only a few select young men and women whose physical capital was commensurate with the discursive requirements of the social field. From this perspective, we argue that both schools authorised certain individuals (mostly young men) who were able to take up ascendant positions because they could most easily convert their physical capital into social and cultural forms. These students were most able to determine acceptable forms of embodiment and could dictate patterns of use in the physical education classroom. In many instances, their dominance worked to prevent most of their peers from fully participating in PE.

Gendered communities of practice and the construction of masculinities in Turkish physical education

“…The first 40 minutes of the lesson were primarily allocated to the teaching of sport and marching drills. Koca, Atencio, and Demirhan (2009) provide strong evidence that the Turkish physical education curriculum is dominated by team sports such as football. In addition, Turkish physical education teachers often implement marching and judo because these activities supposedly foster discipline and social cohesion amongst the students Koca, Atencio, and Demirhan's analysis suggests that Turkish physical education is highly valued by many working-class and poor young men, since it provides them with more opportunities to be physically active in comparison to their everyday non-school lives.…”

“…Lave and Wenger (1991) suggest that learning takes place through formal teaching activities and informal peer group learning. While previous analyses have focused on the structured aspects of the Turkish physical education lesson (see Koca, Atencio, and Demirhan 2009), in this paper we pay closer attention to informal peer group learning which occurred during the 40 minutes of 'free time' built into the physical education lesson. In this context, the shared repertoire constituting the masculine community of practice included measuring one's physical strength and prowess through activities such as fighting, playing rough, wrestling, and playing football.…”

Sociocultural processes of ability in Physical Education and Physical Education Teacher Education: A systematic review

“…Consequently, those being slim, physically mature, talented at ball games and able to exhibit male-associated attributes continued to occupy the most significant positions in the field. These students were given a greater opportunity to successfully display sporting tech-niques (Hay and Macdonald, 2010b;Koca et al, 2009;Redelius and Hay, 2009;Svennberg, 2017). Nevertheless, a divergent reality was experienced by peers whose access to capital was restricted due to the impossibility to meet the demands of the field.…”

“…As a consequence, it is acknowledged that assessment processes can trigger experiences of alienation and symbolic violence for those students who are unable to meet the expectations of specific bodily performances . Similarly, the curriculum itself can also have an impact on assumptions and ideals about valuable forms of physical capital in PE (Evans and Penney, 2008;Hay and Macdonald, 2010a;Koca et al, 2009). To illustrate, Evans and Penney (2008) found two contrasted forms of pedagogy in their analysis of two PE curriculum texts: (a) the horizontal or competency-based pedagogical model; and (b) the vertical or performance-based pedagogical model.…”

“…social and cultural capital). This, in turn, influenced further participation and enjoyment of PE (Hills, 2007;Koca et al, 2009). Additionally, physical capital could also be gained through participation in after-school sports clubs (Hay and Macdonald, 2010a;Redelius and Hay, 2009) and through involvement in elite sport (Hay and Macdonald, 2010b).…”