Physical Education Through The Prism Of Pedagogy

Author(s):

Alison Wrench(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

18. Research in Sports Pedagogy

Format:

Paper

Session Information

18 SES 12 B, Effective Pedagogies in PE and Sport

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-05

09:00-10:30

Room:

B215 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Fiona Chambers

Contribution

Physical education exists as a body of knowledge, system of beliefs and pedagogical practices developed through contested and negotiated meaning making (Goodson 1992). The struggles for the heartland of physical education have not occurred in isolation but reflect the workings of dominant discourses and power relations circulating within cultural and social arenas. In contemporary curriculum documents and texts, physical education is constructed as comprehensive and underpinned by the premise of promoting lifelong participation in physical activity. The overall impression is of a balanced and broad range of study where learning experiences are drawn from the gamut of physical activities and where emotional, social and cognitive learning occurs in learning environments which are equitable in their cultural neutrality (Garrett and Wrench 2007). In Australia the activity range officially includes health related fitness, dance, gymnastics, aquatic activities, outdoor education, and sports (ACARA 2103). Reality suggests that in practice what counts as physical education tends to be dominated by sport related activity and health related fitness (Tinning 1993; Wright 1996).

Popkewitz (2008) reminds us that school subjects are ‘bodies of knowledge’ encompassing concepts, ‘truths’, norms, generalisations and practices to be learnt by students. Physical Education, as with other school subjects, is a field of ‘cultural practices that order who the child is, should be and is not to be’ (Popkewitz 2004 p211). Of interest to this research is why sport related activity and health related fitness are determining the privileged cultural practices of the field of physical education.

In order to understand the hegemony of sport related activity, health related fitness and associated pedagogical practices it is necessary to explore earlier contingencies, beliefs, and historically related utilitarian value attributed to physical education. In historicising of the present (Fejes 2008), I will draw upon Foucault’s conceptualisation of genealogy (1977a; 1980; 2004) as an analytic tool. Venn (2006) argues that genealogies foreground the historicity of the present or the constitutive effects of the past in the present. It is problematisations of the present, such as the hegemony of particular curriculum content and pedagogical practices, that provide impetus and focus for genealogical investigations (Gros 2005).

Traditional historical narratives provide descriptions of the evolution of physical education, but from a Foucauldian perspective they fail to illuminate the modes of power relations at play, localised experiences of students and teachers, disjunctions within chronological accounts, and constitutive effects of power-knowledge as encoded in pedagogies. Adopting a genealogical approach allows me to pose key questions that frame this research undertaking:

In what ways has the field of physical education been constructed as a means to address societal problems?

What modes of power infuse pedagogical practices of physical education?

How do these modes of power direct and shape subjectivities and conduct of teachers and students?

Through exploring the contingencies of earlier pedagogical practices and concomitant power relations, I argue that, potential exists to better understand contemporary curriculum and pedagogical practices and how relations of power work through these to shape behaviours and subjectivities of teachers and students. In this research undertaking I explore forms of physical education, associated pedagogical practices, and modes of power relations that have shaped the field. I will present data through a constellation of four themes: Physical training and attendant militaristic pedagogies; followed by games playingand civilising pedagogies (Kirk 1998); movement education and child centred pedagogies. The fourth and final theme is scientisation and performance pedagogies (Tinning 1991), which prevail today.

Method

Modes of power relations, their strategies, and effects in relation to bodies are pivotal to Foucault’s genealogical studies (Flynn 2003; Markula and Pringle 2006). These genealogies are located along an axis of discourse-power rather than cognition-truth and seek to analyse the plurality of knowledge and attendant power relationships (Foucault 2004; 2007). As such, Foucault’s genealogical studies transform commentary from description and the establishment of definitive meanings (Flynn 2003) to analysis of the ‘micro-physics of power’ (Foucault 1977 p139) in relation to bodies. Bodies, their management and regulation are central to the general project of formal schooling and to physical education in particular (Kirk 1998; 2004). Kirk’s use of Foucault, to explore practices for schooling bodies, during specific time periods (Kirk 1998; 2004), provides guidance for this research undertaking. I will analyse various physical education curricular and policy documents, historical records, and literature produced in Australia. These resources span a time frame that extends from the late nineteenth century through to current times. My choice of Australian materials is methodological (Popkewitz 2004) and reflects my familiarity with this particular setting. Whilst I have chosen to present a genealogical analysis that focuses on historical materials from Australia I hope to provide points of connection and raise implications for those working in the field of physical education beyond this geographical location. Foucault’s theorisation of power relations, as encoded in pedagogical practices of physical education, is significant to my analysis. This is specifically in relation to technologies of disciplinary power, which aim to construct and normalise bodies, and technologies of bio-power, which regulate bodies in terms of population health and productivity. Governmental power relations, or ‘conduct of conduct’ − as this refers to directing conduct and managing the potential of ourselves and others − are also significant to this research undertaking. Analysis through the lens of population and self-government, including the logic of neo-liberal governmentality, is important for understanding the means by which policies and curricular documents guide teachers in managing their own conduct and that of students in relation to specific outcomes around health and productive citizenship. My analysis will attempt to make visible the working of power relations in constructing ‘truths’ that shape the field of physical education, including pedagogical practices and, the subsequent implications for teacher and student subjectivities. My aim is to provoke reflection about the long established utilitarian value ascribed to physical education for producing particular types of citizens.

Expected Outcomes

This research undertaking endeavors to identify the multiple modes of power relations, encoded in pedagogical practices of physical education, and how these work to direct and determine conduct and thus the constitution of particular types of citizens. In historicising the present, practices from four ‘moments’ (Kirk 2004), militaristic pedagogies of physical training, the civilising pedagogies of games, the child-centered pedagogies of movement education, and performance pedagogies are analysed. I will argue that the pedagogical practices evident in these ‘moments’ developed in particular historical times in response to various ‘problem’ constructions (Tinning 2010). As Foucault (1997) posits, they are a ‘group of relations of power and techniques’ (p135) which collectively encompass the government of students and teachers around bodies, physical activity and health. As a consequence, I will argue that the pedagogical practices shape the field of physical education and also possible subject positions. These pedagogical practices contribute to and emerge in response to various manifestations of a utilitarian value ascribed to physical education in disciplining, regulating and shaping bodies (Tinning 2010) of students at an individual and societal level. Giroux (2010) argues that it is important for students to learn how power works so as to use it productively rather than simply learn how to be governed. I conclude by arguing that, in current times, this line of argument is significant for all working in the field of physical education. The significance here for teachers and students is in relation to the current leverage of neo-liberal governmental rationalities to constitute particularly narrow utilitarian visions of physical education as a means to manage student conduct in relation to risks associated with obesity and inactivity.

References

Fejes, A. (2008). Historicizing the lifelong learner. Foucault and Lifelong Learning: Governing the subject. A. Fejes and K. Nicoll. NY, Routledge: 87-99. Flynn, T. (2003). Foucault's Mapping of History. The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, Second Edition. G.Gutting. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 29-48. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. London, Allen Lane Foucault, M. (1977a). Nietzsche, genealogy, history. Language, counter-memory, practice. Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press: 139-164. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge" Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977. New York, Pantheon Books. Foucault, M. (1997). What Our Present Is. The Politics of Truth. S. Lotringer. Los Angeles, Semiotext(e): 129-143 Foucault, M. (2004). Society Must Be Defended London, Penguin Books. Foucault, M. (2007). Security, Territory, Population: lectures at the College de France 1977-1978 New York, Palgrave Macmillan. Garrett, R. and Wrench, A. (2007). "Physical experiences: primary student teachers' conceptions of sport and physical education." Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy 12(1): 23-42. Goodson, I. (1992). "Studying school subjects." Curriculum Perspectives 12: 23-26. Kirk, D. (1998). Schooling Bodies: School Practices and Public Discourse 1880-1950. London, Leicester University Press. Kirk, D. (2004). Beyond the "Academic" Curriculum: The Production and Operation of Biopower in the Less-Studied Sites of Schooling Dangerous Coagulations: The Uses of Foucault in the Study of Education B.M. Baker and K. E. Heyning. NY, Peter Lang Publishing Inc: 117-133. Markula, P. and Pringle, R. (2006). Foucault, Sport and Exercise: Power, knowledge and transforming the self New York, Routledge. Popkewitz, T. S. (2004). The Reason of Reason: Cosmopolitanism and the Governing of Schooling Dangerous Coagulations: The Uses of Foucault in the Study of Education. B.M Baker and K. E. Heyning. NY, Peter Lang Publishing Inc: 189-223. Popkewitz, T. S. (2008). The Reason of Reason: Cosmopolitanism, social exclusion and lifleong learning Foucault and Lifelong Learning A. Fejes and K. Nicoll. NY, Routledge 74-86. Tinning, R. (1991). "Teacher education pedagogy: Dominant discourses and the process of problem solving." Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 11: 1-20. Tinning, R. (1993). If physical education is the answer, what is the question? Runinations on the relevance of physical education in the 1990s. New Zealand Association for Health, Physical Education & Recreation National Conference. Hamilton, University of Waikato. Tinning, R. (2010). Pedagogy and Human Movement: Theory, practice, research. London, Routledge. Wright, J. (1996). "The Construction of Complementarity in Physical Education." Gender & Education 8(1): 61-79.

Author Information

Alison Wrench (presenting / submitting)

University of South Australia

School of Education

Adelaide

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