Session Information
18 SES 04, Education for Social Justice – Social Justice Pedagogies in School Health and Physical Education
Symposium
Contribution
In this paper, we will draw on our empirical data to describe and elucidate social justice pedagogies in HPE settings aimed at inclusion and democracy. More specifically, we discuss how our thematic analysis (Hastie and Glotova, 2012) of the data highlights how HPE practice can support social justice on three different levels: individual, group and society level. On an individual level, teaching related to social justice is about decreasing inequalities, to adjust/adapt the practice to those who are not part of the norm by not having the “right” ability, gender, body, or socio-economic background in order to give them equal opportunities in HPE. For example, the teacher can let the students choose different difficulty levels for certain activities or having everyone throw the ball with the “wrong” hand etc. On a group level, teaching related to social justice is about teamwork and collaboration based on social values. The students are supposed to learn to care for and support each other. Based on our findings, we can discern that girls, newly arrived immigrants, students lacking in swimming abilities and students with disabilities are some of the focus groups for social justice approaches in HPE. On a societal level, teaching related to social justice is about challenging societal structures as related to for instance gender, ethnicity and culture both in school HPE and beyond the school setting. Examples of the former are to introduce different cultural games, work across gender differences and utilise heterogeneous groups. Examples of the latter include introducing students to a range of recreational and sporting activities during their leisure time and providing funding for equipment and clothes to ensure all students equal access to all learning activities. Drawing on our data, we also show how HPE teachers, independently of their nationality, can challenge unequal societal structures by redistributing power within the student group, aimed at inclusion, democracy, equity and social justice. To achieve this, the teachers use tools such as modifying rules within games, (re)organisation of student groups and their own participation and way of being. Towards the end of this paper, we will employ new institutional theory (Scott 2007) to further analyse and discuss the enactment of social justice across the three different countries and levels in HPE practice. In particular, we draw attention to how social justice pedagogies are informed differently by institutionalised governing systems and may act differently in different societies and teachers’ work.
References
Hastie P and Glotova O (2012) Analysing qualitative data. In: Armour K, MacDonald K and MacDonald D (eds) Research Methods in Physical Education and Youth Sport. London, UK: Routledge, pp. 309–320. Scott, W.R. (2007). Institutions and organizations: Ideas and interests. London: Sage.
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