In this body pedagogic study (Shilling 2018) we present an analytical model, Situated Artistic Relation (SAR), that allows us to empirically study artistic expression in PE. Drawing on Dewey’s robust contextualism, the SAR model facilitates in situ analysis and explanation of a learner’s sociolinguistic, embodied, and artistic-aesthetic practice such that the researcher can reasonably infer learning directly from the learner’s palpably observable actions. The empirical data consists of pupils’ group work in gymnastics.

Supportive and inclusive learning environments, well planned and organised subject content, positive peer interaction, appropriate teacher skills and knowledge are among the unchallenged prerequisites to ensure that pupils reach the intended outcomes of teaching. Recent review studies in the field of physical education and sport report on a rich empirical knowledge of how the teaching and learning practice is handled and governed in producing and reproducing these educational basics (Beni, Fletcher and Ní Chróinín 2017). However, it is also notable from these reviews that the field of PE research needs empirical project that explicitly inquire into what types of experiences that promote meaningfulness for pupils, how PE may facilitate learning in the affective domain (Casey and Goodyear 2015) and how we can ensure pupils more freedom to create and express themselves (e.g. Kretchmar 2006). Although pupils’ creativity, their ability to make critical choices, and their responsibility for their own learning, are held as significant educational objectives and given empirical attention, these learning processes are most often analysed in terms of physical, cognitive and social outcomes (Casey and Goodyear 2015). In contrast, this article foregrounds how artistic expressions emerge in pupil-material-tool transactions in gymnastics.

Artists are commonly incapable of stating the conditions for producing their art because as Dewey indicates, they temporarily “suspend cognitive reference” (LW 1: 221). Nevertheless, the emergence of such art depends on the use of intelligence including logical inquiry. Here, such intelligence involves emotional, intellectual and practical functions. Dewey’s definition of these functions is “The emotional phase binds parts together into a single whole; ‘intellectual’ simply names the fact that the experience has meaning; ‘practical’ indicates that the organism is interacting with events and objects which surround it” (LW 10: 61). The emotional phase, i.e. the presence of qualities of sensation and feelings that arise in transactions with the physical and the cultural world, marks the primacy of the aesthetic encounter, and comprise the ultimate context of inquiry for the artist. According to Dewey, “The artist does his thinking in the very qualitative media he works in, and the terms lie so close to the object that he is producing that they merge directly into it” (LW 10: 21). The intellectual aspect relies on the fact that artistic expression is not merely intuitive or improvised; rather, it is the result of sustained expressive work with the “data” actively taken from qualities of sensation and used as means (media) in inference and inquiry. Originating from this philosophical orientation the analysis identifies artistic expressions and connected aesthetic consummatory feelings along with the imaginative grasping for the possible in the actual. Following Dewey in his primacy of social practice, meaning is here analysed as a method of action, a way of using things as means to shared consummation.

Three basic features of artistic expression are of importance to an SAR analysis. Firstly, what expressions of an anticipatory personal vision (an ideal end-in-view) of the completed gymnastic performance can we observe in the pupils’ group work? Secondly, in what ways are the material worked with engaged as the media of expression? How are communications about qualities of sensation made with reference to the characteristic qualities of the material?

Audio-video material derived from a 5-year project named Teaching and Learning Practical Embodied Knowledge supply the data for the SAR analyses. Through video data collections of teacher-student narratives in conjunction with in situ observations of practice, dialogical vignettes and critical moments of the PE teaching have been depicted. The use of different camera equipment and recording angles has allowed a close-up and detailed view on student-teacher-body-material-tools transactions. Thereby the analysis captures multimodal aspects of communication including not only words, but also bodily gestures, posture, gaze, social interaction, visual cueing, and the organization of space in the gym. Against this background the SAR model is used to analyse PE as an embodied artistic practice enabling explorations of learning as it goes from an instrumental learning of a body technique (see Crossley 2004) to an artistic expression through a body technique. The aim of the SAR-model is to construct knowledge regarding students learning to express themselves while working with physical material (e.g. rope, balance beam, madras etcetera). “S” refers to that the learning is situated, “A” that it has artistic-aesthetic meaning, and “R” that it is relational and that feelings joins habits as important ways of embodying relations to physical material. The SAR-model uses two analytical concepts, SAR-variable and SAR-indicator, in order to describe such artistic processes. SAR-variables are identified by analysing participant practical stated conditions and SAR-indicators by analysing the consummatory outcomes of the practical stated conditions (Author et al 2018). Applying the SAR model on PE it is possible to discern interactional details about two activities that pupils need to learn: 1) Staging a specific environment out of the material circumstances, that is, to put certain variables (physical and cultural objects and events), and relations between them, in focus for the activity; 2) Coordinate the staged environment in relation to a purpose (i.e., intentional objects, ends-in-view), including personal self-expression, and to perform bodily movements based on that coordination. The first relates to learning the practical and technical aspects of the gymnastic performance and the second relates to self-expression through the material producing the performance. It is in order to depict important pupil actions in such emergence the SAR-model uses the concepts of variables and indicators. Based on this analysis the researched questions above regarding personal vision, media of expression and communications about qualities of sensation are dealt with by reasonably infer learning directly from the learner’s palpably observable actions.

The SAR model allows us make well-warranted empirical claims regarding learning from direct observations of overt action. However, following Dewey, we realize that even the best warranted theories, the most refined methods, and competently collected data sets remain forever falsifiable. “Only where material is employed as media,” Dewey concludes, “is there expression and art” (LW 10: 69). Our paper provides previously unpublished empirical illustrations of how pupils create practically stated conditions (SAR-variables) of consummatory outcomes (SAR-indicators) and thereby arrives at specific cultural and idiosyncratic expressions in gymnastic education. Pupils coordination of variables and indicators develops as shared methods of consummations and the SAR model report on important means and experiences connected to artistic expressions through the very qualitative media (gymnastic equipment) in which they work. Our analysis reveals that although artists may temporarily suspend cognitive reference, communication connected to self-expression and qualities of sensation also involves a practical and technical vocabulary. On the other hand, the students will never grasp the full meaning of their gymnastic performance if all they comprehend are its references and stateable meanings. If we are to believe Dewey: “Science is an art, that art is practice, and that the only distinction worth drawing is not between practice and theory, but between those modes of practice that are not intelligent, not inherently and immediately enjoyable, and those which are full of enjoyed meanings” (LW 1: 268). To gain a deeper understanding about how we can offer students more freedom to create and express themselves in PE it is important to develop analytical tools capable of capturing processes when learning activities goes from instrumental learning of a body technique (e.g. Mauss 1973) to an artistic expression through a body technique. Here, the SAR model can contribute with philosophical and empirical clarification.

Citations of the works of Dewey are to the critical edition, The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882- 1953 published by Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale. Volume and page numbers follow the initials of the series. For instance, MW 9: 1. Abbreviations for the volumes used are: MW The Middle Works (1899-1924) LW The Later Works (1925-1953) Authors et al. (2018) Beni, S., Fletcher, T., & Ní Chróinín, D. (2017). Meaningful experiences in physical education and youth sport: A review of the literature. Quest, 69(3), 291-312. Casey, A., & Goodyear, V. A. (2015). Can cooperative learning achieve the four learning outcomes of physical education? A review of literature. Quest, 67(1), 56-72. Crossley, N. (2004). The circuit trainer’s habitus: Reflexive body techniques and the sociality of the workout. Body & society, 10(1), 37-69. Dewey, John. The Correspondence of John Dewey. 1871-1918. Larry Hickman (Ed.). Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University, 1997. Scott Kretchmar, R. (2006). Ten more reasons for quality physical education. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 77(9), 6-9. Mauss, M. (1973). Techniques of the Body. Economy and society, 2(1), 70-88.