“They May Be a Level One Student, But I Love Them All”: Preservice Teachers Negotiating Inclusion and Diversity in Their Classes

Abstract

Teachers are continually pressured to professionalize and to adopt measures that enhance inclusion and diversity. Professionalism can, however, have various meanings; each meaning has its own conceptualization of and approach to inclusion. The purpose of this paper is to explore how preservice teachers in physical education negotiate discourses about professionalism and how they attempt to use them to practice inclusion. Eleven Dutch preservice teachers participated in video-stimulated interviews and elaborated on their understandings of inclusion and diversity in physical education. By applying a Foucauldian lens to their understandings, the author reveals some of the complexities they encountered while being subjected to and/or positioned as agents in competing discursive practices of professionalism. The paper concludes by addressing the challenges generated from this work for future schooling practices and research in physical education teacher education.