Curricula Equity in Required Ninth-Grade Physical Education

Abstract

Physical educators from randomly selected high schools (N = 180) in the AAHPERD Central District were surveyed via telephone regarding their required (9th grade) physical education programs. Four researchers scored the 180 instruments, and each instrument was scored independently with a 96% inter-rater reliability. For the entire sample, 52% of the activity units were team sports, 39% individual sports, 4% dance-gymnastics, and 4% adventure-cooperative-recreational. Of the 180 schools, 71% conducted programs in compliance with Title IX. Of the teachers interviewed, 88% of the females and 30% of the males taught outside their socially accepted areas, although they tended to conduct similar curricula. In general, schools delivered traditional multi-activity programs emphasizing team and lifetime sports, while 25% of the schools had programs with a primary emphasis on competitive, contact, male-oriented team activities. Thus, curricula tended to perpetuate the current socially constructed view of gender and physical activity.