Contesting discourses about physical education

Abstract

This article investigates and problematises how contesting discourses about Physical Education (PE) as a school subject are immersed within textbooks used in Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) in Denmark. The paper considers PETE textbooks as powerful documents that construct and maintain discourses about PE, and at the same time as central texts for the reading of such discourses. Fairclough’s and Foucault’s notions of discourse and discourse analysis are applied to identify dominant patterns in those 20 textbooks that are most used in PETE in Denmark. The findings reveal three different discourses that represent contesting philosophies about the value and practice of PE. These are termed: (1) Developing the potential for sport, (2) Basis for creative sensing and (3) Being part of a cultural ballast. The paper analyses these three discourses critically and concludes that PETE textbooks are deeply involved in the (re)construction, struggling and ‘working’ of classical discourses in PE. The discussion deals with the way that PETE textbooks comprise powerful documents that through their recurrent use of high modality are unequivocal in their suggestions for PE practices, and how pre-service teachers in this way are exposed to antagonistic discourses in PETE textbooks. We suggest that PETE teachers may use textbook analysis in the educational programme as a tool for reflection upon the working of discourses in PE in general and for discussing central ideological dilemmas in PE.