Session Information
27 SES 06 A, Manners of Teaching in Science Education and Physical Education
Paper Session
Contribution
The main purpose of this paper is to compare the manners of teaching group fitness in secondary schools in the three countries involved in the Teaching Traditions and Learning project funded by the Swedish research Council (Sweden, France and Switzerland). Didactic transposition theory and teaching traditions constitute the theoretical background to be discussed in the first part of the paper. Didactic transposition theory conceptualizes the inevitable phenomena of transformation, elaboration and reconstruction of the knowledge to be taught (Chevallard, 1991). Unlike other school subjects, physical education (PE) cannot be directly based on a corpus of established scientific knowledge which would be taken as reference in the didactic transposition process. It is rather based on a social field of physical practices. From these social practices taken as reference (Martinand, 2001), PE teachers construct ‘scholastic forms of practice’ oriented towards educational purposes (Mascret, 2011). This construction can take several forms and we expect to observe different manners of teaching group fitness across the three countries which might possibly refer to different teaching traditions. Teaching traditions shape the curriculum in the sense that they contain ideas about the goals of school subjects and therefore about the kind of skills expected from students in order to achieve these specific goals (Lundqvist, Almqvist & Östman, 2012). We have already identified differences between the curriculum texts for PE at secondary school in Sweden, France and Switzerland (Lenzen, Forest, Cordoba & Öhman, 2015). In so far as a gap may exist between formal and actual curricula, we now intend to study the manners of teaching group fitness as they are observable in teacher and students’ joint action, as a second step in determining teaching traditions in PE.
As a popular social practice recently taken as reference by PE teachers, group fitness has its genesis in aerobics, when aerobic exercise was combined with elements of dance culture (Bricker, 2007). Because of its roots in dance, group fitness was intimidating to many men and dominated by women (Haravan Collins, 2002 ; Lloyd, 1996). It is noteworthy that where significant numbers of men were attending particular aerobics classes, UK teachers were advised to change the nature, structure and name of the sessions and to replace a proportion of the dance element by more strength work (Lloyd, 1996). Nowadays there is a large variety of group fitness classes including Hi/Lo Aerobics, Step aerobics, Body Balance, Bodycombat, Body Pump, Body Sculpt, Zumba, Spinning, etc., and of these, two are of interest for our study. Step aerobics was innovated by Gin Miller around 1989. It is a form of aerobic power distinguished from other types of aerobic exercise by its use of an elevated platform (the step). Body Sculpt is a non-aerobic, muscle-toning class, usually focused on core strength. Most classes use weight bars, exercise bands and/or dumbbells. Concurrent with mass participation in fitness activities was the emergence of competitive, performance-based aerobics, resulting in FIG (Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique) incorporating sport aerobics as one of its four disciplines (Brabazon, 2006).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Brabazon, T. (2006). Fitness is a Feminist Issue. Australian Feminist Studies, 21(49), 65-83. Bricker, K. (2007). Traditional Aerobics (2nd ed.). San Diego : American Council on Exercise. Chevallard, Y. (1991). La transposition didactique. Du savoir savant au savoir enseigné (3e éd.). Grenoble : La pensée sauvage. Haravan Collins, L. (2002). Working out the contradictions. Feminism and Aerobics. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 26(1), 85-109. Lenzen, B., Forest, E., Cordoba, A, & Öhman, M. (2015). Physical education – teaching traditions in physical education in Sweden, France and Switzerland: A special focus on gymnastics and fitness curricula. Communication at European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) ‘Education and Transition – Contribution from Educational Research’. Budapest, September 7-11, 2015. Lloyd, M. (1996). Feminism, Aerobics and the Politics of the Body. Body & Society, 2(2), 79-98. Lundqvist, E., Almqvist, J., & Östman, L. (2012). Institutional traditions in teachers‘ manners of teaching. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 7(1), 111-127. Martinand, J.-L. (2001). Pratiques de référence et problématique de la référence curriculaire. In A. Terrisse (Ed.), Didactique des disciplines. Les références au savoir (pp. 17-24). Bruxelles : De Boeck. Mascret, N. (2011). ‘Badminton player-coach’ interactions between failing students. Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy, 16(1), 1-13.
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