The aim of the project is to investigate social practices in Physical Education (PE) at primary school level. All the children are entitled to swimming lessons in PE. For the past decades, many Norwegian pupils have not mastered swimming after 4th grade. A survey from 2003 shows that only half of the 10-year-olds could swim 200 meters. The Norwegian curriculum states that pupils should be able to swim after 4th grade. In 2017, the government provided increased funding to better the swimming education. Implementation of a swimming test for the pupils, a new website with instruction videos, and grants for diversity projects, especially for Muslim girls, are some of the new initiatives taken in order to improve swimming competence among pupils. For swimming education, sufficient time in the water is a key factor. The Didactical Relationship Model provides a framwork for analyzing how factors in the education practice affect each other (Hiim and Hippe 2006). With my project, I seek new knowledge within all didactical factors of the model in regards to swimming education. Also, the study investigates what is at stake, questioning the position of PE compared to other subjects in school. The project tries to explore both the individual life story of the pupils and the institutional story at the schools. With the theoretical framework of Bourdieu, I will investigate the habitus of the pupils. Learning how to swim is a cultural practice, according to Marcel Mauss and his texts about the body, and Bourdieu and his term the practical sense. The study will be conducted in a Norwegian context, but deals with issues of clear international relevance. The research questions are:

What characterizes today's swimming practices and where do the practices come from?

What is the importance of social factors for the practice of physical education?

What characterizes the field of PE?

What is the importance of the social factors for the pupils's participation in PE?

This study will be based on a literature review, observations and interviews.

The findings so far is that today's swimming education are characterized with many similarities to the practice of swimming as a competitive sport. If swimming education is to be more inclusive, teachers should work for a teaching practice targeting personal development and learning rather than competition and achievement.

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