Students’ experiences and learning of social inclusion in team activities in physical education

Abstract

Physical education (PE) can be a context in which students are ‘educated through the physical’, which includes the possibility to learn social inclusion as an important life skill and contributor to the greater good of society. A key goal in the Norwegian educational system is that such positive life skills become internalised in students. The aims of this study were to understand students’ experiences of and behaviour towards social inclusion – such as passing the ball – in team activities and how the teacher facilitated the learning of social inclusion. We use Dewey’s pedagogical perspective on education, and Johnson and Johnson’s cooperative learning model to discuss possible consequences and implications of our findings. The participants consisted of two secondary classes from two state schools in Norway, where one class was investigated in depth. Methods comprised written narratives, interviews, observation and video recordings of PE lessons. Data creation was triangulated, and thematic analysis was conducted. The results highlighted a paradox between students’ experiences of and behaviour towards social inclusion in team activities. Students disliked socially exclusive behaviours, but they often provided positive feedback when the behaviour was seen as successful in the context of a game; furthermore, students could themselves behave in a socially exclusive manner. Although the teacher could ‘teach by telling’ the students to pass the ball or by having rules, passing the ball did not become internalised in students. We discuss a model of ‘learning through experiences and reflections’, according to which students may learn to become socially inclusive beings.