Katarina Schenker

Social Entrepreneurship in a Sport Policy Context.

Abstract This article investigates social entrepreneurship in relation to government state policies in Sweden and to the Swedish sports movement. Social entrepreneurship within sport comprises three elements that need to be qualified: the social element, entrepreneurship and sport. We wish to offer both a specific and a wider definition of social entrepreneurship in sport; specific in the sense that we try to define the concept theoretically, and wider in that we place the concept in a societal context where we relate it to different sectors in society. The method can be described as ethnographically inspired case studies. Four cases are presented. Previous research and the cases have helped us to formulate theses concerning ‘sport’ and ‘profit’ as means for social entrepreneurship, ‘social’ being normatively defined in the public sector, and entrepreneurial activities being understood as acts, crossing boundaries between the different sectors of society, leading to conflicts.

Health(y) education in Health and Physical Education

ABSTRACT Teachers in the school subject Health and Physical Education (HPE) need to be able both to teach health and to do so in a healthy (equitable) way. The health field has, however, met with difficulties in finding its form within the subject. Research indicates that HPE can be excluding, meaning that it may give more favours to some pupils (bodies) than to others [cf. Webb, L. A., Quennerstedt, M., & Öhman, M. (2008). Healthy bodies: Construction of the body and health in physical education. Sport, Education and Society, 13(4), 353–372.; Webb, L., & Quennerstedt, M. (2010). Risky bodies: Health surveillance and teachers’ embodiment of health. QSE. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 23(7), 785–802; Williamson, B. (2015). Algorithmic skin: Health-tracking technologies, personal analytics and the biopedagogies of digitized health and physical education. Sport, Education and Society, 20(1), 133–151], and thereby being unhealthy for unfavoured pupils. The purpose of this study is therefore to investigate how HPE teacher education students in Sweden interpret health in HPE and discuss possible implications for future education in the school subject. The study involves 81 Bachelor/Master theses, connected to the HPE school subject and examined at six different Swedish universities. All the student theses were examined in 2012. Of the identified theses, 30 can be related more or less directly to health in physical education. These are the ones further scrutinized here. The contents of the selected essays may be categorized on the basis of tests as tools to measure health/ill health/performance, the knowledge required to teach health and also health as part of pedagogy. In sum, the theses display a reproductive approach to the subject, which involves the risk that the subject will subsequently function as disciplining, standardizing and excluding for some pupils, especially for those who do not engage in sports in their leisure time. In order to develop HPE’s potential into becoming healthier and more equal, researchers, teacher education and teachers do not primarily need to perceive health from the activity and individual perspectives, but rather from a power relations and equity perspective aiming towards equality.

The doxa of physical education teacher education – set in stone?

In this paper, we critically examine the potential of assessment components in physical education teacher education (PETE) to either reinforce or challenge PETE students’ conceptions of what a physical education (PE) teacher needs to know to teach this school subject. To understand the mechanisms that may contribute to the difficulty of challenging these taken-for-granted beliefs (doxa) within PETE, we draw on the theories and concepts of Pierre Bourdieu. Two different kinds of empirical material are analysed: one consists of 62 essays, written by PETE students before starting their degree programme, dealing with their conceptions of PE teachers’ competencies, while the second consists of course booklets and assessment components used within one PETE programme. The study shows that implicit prerequisites and conditions in assessment components are very similar to the conceptions of competencies in PETE students’ statements. The study also shows that taken-for-granted beliefs may be challenged, but at the same time, we argue, the use of socially critical perspectives in PE practice may also (in the name of the doxa) stigmatise those who are not physically active in their leisure time as well as those who do not look fit and sporty, and thus does not challenge the way power and social superiority or inferiority appear in PE.

Teaching Physical Activity—a Matter of Health and Equality?

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to understand the mechanisms supporting equality and social health in physical activity (PA) practices by analysing didactic choices. Social health is understood as equal distribution of power. Thereby, a healthy PA practice needs to be inclusive. 3 PA activities are analysed as cases. Issues of inclusion and exclusion are scrutinized. The analysis shows how the power in PA classes may be reallocated by didactic choices and tools such as the teaching content, the rules, the organization, and the leader attitude. Additionally, to increase the possibilities of conducting healthy PA teaching in physical education and health (PEH), humane values need to take precedence before the competitive sport logic governed by a scientific paradigm.

Ethics in Researching Sport and Social Entrepreneurship

When researching sport and social entrepreneurship it is important to be aware of several ethical dilemmas. This chapter examines four sport-related cases, concluding that entrepreneurs may prefer not to be anonymous informants in research ventures; that they may become part of the brand and the branding process; and that researchers have to navigate different sectors of society and thus run the risk of being accused of becoming accomplices in the venture.

A Methodological Tool for Researching Sport and Social Entrepreneurship

The last chapter introduces a methodological tool for analysing social entrepreneurship in a sports policy context, built on a number of steps in relation to the five theses. This tool has become useful in the research process and is valuable for communicating the analysis. A comparison of the seven case studies is conducted in which both similarities and differences are identified and analysed.

A Definition of Sport and Social Entrepreneurship

In this chapter, five theses are formulated to frame the concept of social entrepreneurship and to make it fruitful in a sports policy context. The social element, entrepreneurship and sport are entities forming the point of departure for the analysis. The first thesis concerns the social good and the normative goals of democratic fostering. The second and third concern the issues of means and goals and how they are materialized in the voluntary sector. The last two theses concern the conflictual crossing of boundaries between different sectors in society. The theses are accompanied by a case study that contextualizes social entrepreneurship in a Swedish sports policy context.

Researching social justice and health (in)equality across different school Health and Physical Education contexts in Sweden, Norway and New Zealand:

The way school Health and Physical Education (HPE) is conceptualized and taught will impact on its ability to provide equitable outcomes across gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion and social class. A focus on social justice in HPE is pertinent in times when these ideals are currently under threat from neoliberal globalization. This paper draws on data from the initial year of an international collaboration project called ‘Education for Equitable Health Outcomes – The Promise of School Health and Physical Education’ involving HPE and Physical Education Teacher Education researchers from Sweden, Norway and New Zealand. The data in this paper record the researchers’ presentations and discussions about issues of social justice and health as informed by school visits and interviews with HPE teachers in the three different countries. The analysis of the data is focused on what is addressed in the name of social justice in each of the three countries and how cross-cultural researchers of social justice in HPE interpret different contexts. In order to analyse the data, we draw on Michael Uljens’s concepts of non-affirmative and non-hierarchical education. The findings suggest that researching social justice and health (in)equality across different countries offers both opportunities and challenges when it comes to understanding the enactment of social justice in school and HPE practices. We conclude by drawing on Uljens to assert that the quest for social justice in HPE should focus on further problematizing affirmative and hierarchical educational practices since social justice teaching strategies are enabled and constrained by the contexts in which they are practised.