Richard Pringle

Finding Pleasure in Physical Education: A Critical Examination of the Educative Value of Positive Movement Affects

In this article I critically examine the dominant educational justifications for physical education (PE) with specific reference to the significance of movement pleasure. I contextualize the discussion in relation to The New Zealand Curriculum but acknowledge that the argument developed applies more broadly to Western PE. Many sport pedagogues recognize the value of movement pleasure in PE but few overtly accept that the promotion of such pleasure is of legitimate educative value. In contrast, the dominant justifications for PE rest on instrumental and developmental goals. I draw on Morgan (2006) to provide a critique of these goals and emphasize the potential educational value of movement pleasure. I conclude that attempting to understand how pleasures (and displeasures) are socially constructed and effectively managed in PE is a complex but important educational challenge.

‘No rugby—no fear’: collective stories, masculinities and transformative possibilities in schools

This paper contributes to the development of a critical pedagogy in physical education (PE) by illustrating how ‘collective stories’ can be used within schools to help raise awareness of the relationships between sport, PE and gendered identities. A collective story, a concept developed by Laurel Richardson, aims to give voice to those silenced or marginalised by dominant cultural narratives and promote transformative possibilities. Within this paper I present a collective story of eight mens school experiences of rugby union to illustrate the difficulty of negotiating comforting stories of self in the face of rugbys cultural dominance within New Zealand. I detail the representational issues associated with constructing the story and my experience of presenting it to school students to assess whether it encouraged an empathetic response and disrupted romanticised ways of conceptualising the links between sport and masculinities. I conclude by discussing how I used the collective story, as a pedagogical tool, to examine the viability of introducing Foucauldian strategies to help students think critically.

Competing obesity discourses and critical challenges for health and physical educators

Health and physical education teachers have become subject to epistemological and ethical tensions associated with competing obesity and physical activity discourses. The dominating obesity discourse, underpinned by truth claims from science, encourages educators to pathologise fatness, treat exercise as a medicine and survey student activity levels. A reverse obesity discourse, however, argues that obesity concerns are socially constructed in response to a moral panic surrounding youth lifestyles and these concerns are, of themselves, harmful for health. Educators, accordingly, are drawn in different directions with respect to how to manage their governance role of student bodies and the dissemination of health and physical activity knowledge. In this paper, we discuss this dilemma and draw from Foucauldian and Derridian theorising to offer one potential educational strategy. This strategy rests on the idea that knowledge is not fixed but fluid and, therefore, critical education is less about the transmission of knowledge and more about equipping students with skills so that they can critically engage with uncertainty and negotiate the complexities of social life.

The politics of pleasure: an ethnographic examination exploring the dominance of the multi-activity sport-based physical education model

Kirk warns that physical education (PE) exists in a precarious situation as the dominance of the multi-activity sport-techniques model, and its associated problems, threatens the long-term educational survival of PE. Yet he also notes that although the model is problematic it is highly resistant to change. In this paper, we draw on the results of a year-long visual ethnography at an all-boys secondary school in Aotearoa New Zealand to examine the workings of power that legitimate this model of PE. Our findings illustrate that the school conflates PE and sport, to position PE as an appropriate masculine endeavour and valued source of enjoyment, as it articulates with good health, social development and competitiveness. We argue that student experiences of pleasure within PE—as co-constitutive with discourses of fitness, health, sport and masculinity—(re)produce the multi-activity sport-based form of PE as educationally appropriate and socioculturally relevant, thus making the model somewhat resistant to change. We stress that our study should not be read as a vindication of this PE model.

Examining the justifications for government investment in high performance sport: a critical review essay.

The New Zealand Government has recently increased investment in high performance sport with the justification that elite sport helps to produce a more active, cohesive and economically robust nation, with a positive sense of identity. In this paper, in order to encourage reflection, debate and research, these justifications for the support of elite sport are critically examined, with particular reference to case studies of rugby union and the America’s Cup Regatta. The proposition that significant public investment in a small number of elite sport participants, will result in increased sporting activity levels, is shown to be currently unsubstantiated. In addition, it is argued that it is problematic to rely on functionalist justifications, related to social cohesion and national identity, for promoting high performance sport. Finally, it is suggested that, although economic benefits associated with investment in high performance sport can be significant, concern should also focus on how the returns from these investments are distributed and how they affect factors associated with social, political and economic inequities.

Physical education, positivism, and optimistic claims from achievement goal theorists.

Achievement goal theory, as an attempt to explain the factors that influence motivated behavior, has received signiticant attention from youth sport researchers, sport psychologists, and educators since its proposal in 1980. This papr reviews the basic tenets of achievement goal theory and outlines potential problems through its usage in attempting lo understand student behavior and attitudes in physical education. Specifically, I argue this reductionist and decontextualized research treats the physical education student as a motivational problem, the teacher as the solution, and the social context of physical education and sport as nonproblematic. This positivist approach to knowledge construction may indirectly act to perpetuate inequitable power relations and dominant idenlogies found in physical education. Ironically, this could dissuade certain youth from participating in sport or physical education, the antithesis of the activity promotion objectives of many achievement goal theorists. I conclude by suggesting to enhance physical education practice, research should employ critical and reflective methods of knowing and continue to seek out student and teacher voices to help create responsive leaming environments for diverse student needs.

Gaining a foothold in football: A genealogical analysis of the emergence of the female footballer in New Zealand

In this article we adopted Foucault’s genealogical approach to examine the emergence of the female footballer in the early 1970s. Results from in-depth interviews and document analyses indicated that these female footballers were discursively constructed as submissive, heterosexual, non-feminists, who were supportive of male football and entertainment. We relatedly argue, in a seemingly paradoxical manner, that female footballers emerged into the male domain because they were disciplined by discourses of normalized femininity and, as such, were understood as bodies not worthy of serious consideration. The power effect of this positioning was that female football was not perceived as a threat to the existing gender order and, accordingly, there was no need to invest political concern or future money to their existence. This miscalculation, or accident of history, provided a window of opportunity that allowed the neophyte players to taste the pleasures of ‘running with the ball at their feet’ and to develop a love of the game. We concluded that the pleasure that these women gained from their involvement in football, plus the prevailing discourses of liberal feminism, acted as productive forces that enabled them to endure and eventually challenge gender inequities.

Masculinities, gender relations and leisure studies: Are we there yet?

The genesis for this special edition occurred at the 8th Biennial Australian and New Zealand Association of Leisure Studies conference hosted by Victoria University, Melbourne in 2008. A special theme, organized by Tess Kay, Kevin Lyons and John Jenkins encouraged eight presenters to examine masculinities and leisure under the title of ‘Unlocking men: Presentations around the theme of men, gender and leisure’. Three papers are worthy of specific mention as they revealed that a more extensive examination of leisure and masculinities was warranted. Kay (2008) provided a critical assessment of the gendering of leisure studies and a call to address the deficit of knowledge concerned with masculinities and leisure. Kevin Lyons (2008), in a similarly provocative manner, examined how men’s leisure research had been preoccupied with responding to the critiques made by feminist leisure scholarship rather than addressing the gendered experiences of men’s leisure. And Veal (2008) argued that the leisure experiences of men had been neglected, and perhaps even ‘stereotyped’, within leisure studies. It was within this challenging and critically engaged context that the seeds for this special edition were sown. In this introductory paper, we first present an abridged overview of how gender analyses within leisure studies have developed. We then provide the results of a content analysis that examined papers published in three leading leisure journals concerned with leisure and masculinities. This is followed by a discussion of issues associated with theorizing masculinities. Finally, we introduce the papers presented within this special edition.

Transformative research and epistemological hierarchies: Ruminating on how the sociology of the sport field could make more of a difference

Amidst recent clarion calls for ‘transformative action’ within the sociology of sport, in this paper we consider the prospects of the field with respect to challenging social injustices and inequities. We reflect on how the sociology of sport has developed in a manner that now privileges the idiographic over the nomothetic, qualitative over quantitative methods and social constructionism over scientism. Although we acknowledge the strengths of these ways of knowing, we argue that the resulting marginalization of quantitative methods and associated scepticism towards the biological sciences may potentially limit the ability of the sociology of sport to make a difference. We subsequently draw on select feminist activists and affect theorists to consider how methodological border crossings might enhance possibilities for challenging social injustices. We proffer that it is timely to reevaluate the field’s epistemological orthodoxies in order to have greater political impact.

On the Development of Sport and Masculinities Research: Feminism as a Discourse of Inspiration and Theoretical Legitimation

This chapter traces the historic and contemporary influence of feminist scholarship within research pertaining to the critical study of sport, masculinities and gender relations. The first section illustrates how feminist theorizing provides impetus for recognizing males as gendered beings, for understanding masculinity as a relational concept tied to the workings of power, and for highlighting the intimate connections between genders, bodies, sexualities and associated performances. The second section provides an overview of how particular theoretical perspectives (e.g., psychoanalytic approaches, sex-role theorizing, hegemonic masculinities, Bourdieuian and Foucauldian theorizing, and the concept of inclusive masculinities) have been drawn upon by sport and masculinity scholars and how feminist theorizing has worked to legitimate or problematize the use of these theories. The chapter concludes by suggesting that feminist ideals articulate with a sense of social justice and that this powerful articulation has, in part, acted to legitimate the prominence of feminism in the development of sport and masculinity scholarship.