Richard Tinning

Postmodern Youth Culture and the Crisis in Australian Secondary School Physical Education

In this paper we claim that there is a crisis in Australian secondary school physical education. The crisis is evident in, among other things, the fact that school physical education is irrelevant or boring for many adolescents. The curriculum does not excite or stimulate adolescents who outside of school live in what might be called a postmodern youth culture, inextricably shaped by television and the information society. A contradictory, and ironic, aspect of the crisis is that many of the adolescents bored with school physical education see physical activity as significant to their lifestyles outside the school context. We provide a tentative analysis of this trend and draw on our experiences in a curriculum development project to discuss the need to consider a curriculum that is relevant and engaging for postmodern youth. We argue that this requires more than providing entertaining classes or better teaching: It requires a rethinking of the nature of school physical education.

Pedagogy and human movement: Theory, practice, research

Across the full range of human movement studies and their many sub-disciplines, established institutional practices and forms of pedagogy are used to (re)produce valued knowledge about human movement. Pedagogy and Human Movement explores this pedagogy in detail to reveal its applications and meanings within individual fields. This unique book examines the epistemological assumptions underlying each of these pedagogical systems, and their successes and limitations as ways of (re)producing knowledge related to physical activity, the body, and health. It also considers how the pedagogical discourses and devices employed influence the ways of thinking, practice, dispositions and identities of those who work in the fields of sport, exercise and other human movement fields. With a scope that includes physical education, exercise and sports science, sports sociology and cultural studies, kinesiology, health promotion, human performance and dance, amongst other subjects, Pedagogy and Human Movement is the most comprehensive study of pedagogical cultures in human movement currently available. It is an invaluable resource for anybody with an interest in human movement studies.

Physical Education, Curriculum And Culture : Critical Issues In The Contemporary Crisis

This collection of studies addresses contemporary issues and problems in the physical education curriculum. While each of the chapters illustrates the diverse range of practical curriculum issues currently facing physical education, the continuities between them also suggest a certain commonality of experience in Britain, North America and Au tralia. In each it is difficult not to detect at least some rumblings of the various crises - environmental, political, economic, social - that are increasingly impacting on everyday lives in the present and shaping thoughts and plans for the future. The editors stress that physical education is a part of social life and is therefore a key site for the production and legitimation of important cultural mores, values and symbols.

The social construction of pedagogic discourse in physical education teacher education in Australia

Once the exclusive domain of teacher education, physical education in Australian tertiary institutions has during the last twenty years evolved into a series of discipline‐based fields concerned with human movement studies, leisure studies and sport science that have begun to feed new vocational opportunities in the sport, exercise and leisure industries. Concomitant with these changes in the social organization of knowledge in tertiary physical education has been a realignment of school physical education programmes, particularly in the senior school curriculum. Inevitably, the once sole focus of physical education in tertiary institutions on teacher education is now being forced to reinvent itself in light of these dynamic changes in the social organization of school and university knowledge. Following the work of Bernstein, Goodson and others, this article analyses current policy and practice in physical education teacher education and identifies several future scenarios. The first part of the article provides an historical overview of the emergence of new forms of tertiary knowledge in physical education from the mid‐1970s until the present. The second part provides a similar overview of developments in school physical education with a focus on senior school and matriculation physical education during the same period. The third part analyses the current state of affairs in the social organization of knowledge for physical education teacher education. In the fourth part, a series of questions is raised concerning relationships between knowledge in physical education teacher education, school physical education and university forms of the field through the presentation of several future scenarios. The article concludes with several proposals for policy development concerned with physical education teacher education programmes.

High Performance Sport Coaching: Institutes of Sport as Sites for Learning

There has been a marked increase in the number of government-funded, high performance institutes and academies of sport within Australia. Given that these organisations employ significant numbers of full-time performance sport coaches, they may be accurately characterised as workplaces. Performance sport coaches have underscored the importance of experience in developing their coaching skill. However, despite wide acceptance of the view that learning occurs everywhere but to different extents and with different efficiency, and the acknowledgement of current national coach education programs as insufficient, no sport coaching research has focused specifically on sport workplaces as sites for learning. This paper will review the current nature of coach development with a view to examining the interaction between what the workplace (institute/academy) affords the individual and the personal agency of the individual (high performance sports coaches).

Pedagogy, Sport Pedagogy, and the Field of Kinesiology

The term pedagogy has become ubiquitous in the field of kinesiology, and sport pedagogy is now firmly established as a credible academic subdiscipline. Notwithstanding the fact that our European colleagues had been using the terms pedagogy and sport pedagogy for many years (see Crum, 1986; Haag, 2005), the English-speaking world of kinesiology has only relatively recently embraced the terms. Increased use, however, does not necessarily equate with coherent or shared understandings of what the terms mean. Accordingly, the purpose of this article is to do some “languaging” (Kirk, 1991; Postman, 1989) to shed some light on the meanings of pedagogy and sport pedagogy and in so doing perhaps stimulate further consideration of their use in kinesiology. I will argue for a notion of pedagogy that is generative in enabling us to think about the process of knowledge production and reproduction across the many subdisciplines of kinesiology, including, but not limited to, sport pedagogy. Finally I will consider the notion of pedagogical work as providing a useful concept for analyzing the contribution of sport pedagogy to understandings related to how we come to know about physical activity, the body, and health.

The social tasks of learning to become a physical education teacher: considering the HPE subject department as a community of practice

Initial teacher education (ITE) students participate in various workplaces within schools and in doing so, form understandings about the numerous, and at times competing, expectations of teachers’ work. Through these experiences they form understandings about themselves as health and physical education (HPE) teachers. This paper examines the ways communities of practice within HPE subject department offices function as sites of workplace learning for student teachers. In particular this research focused on how ITE students negotiate tacit and contradictory expectations as well as social tasks during the practicum and the ways in which their understandings are mediated through participation in the workspace. Qualitative methods of survey and semi-structured interview were used to collect data on a cohort of student teachers during and following their major (10 week) practicum experience. Analysis was informed by theories of communities of practice (Wenger, 1998), workplace learning (Billett, 2001), and social task systems (Doyle, 1977). It was evident that considerable effort, attention, and energy was expended on various interrelated social tasks aimed at building positive relationships with their supervisor and other HPE teachers at the school. The social dynamics were highly nuanced and required a game-like approach. In our view the complexity that student teachers must negotiate in striving for an excellent evaluation warrants specific attention in physical education teacher education (PETE) programs. This study raises questions regarding our responsibilities in sending student teachers into contexts that might even be described as toxic. We offer some suggestions for how PETE might better support students going into practicum contexts that might be regarded as problematic workplaces.

Reading Action Research: Notes on Knowledge and Human Interests.

Action research is now part of the official discourse of the physical education profession. However, the phrase action research is not understood in the same way by all those who use it. This paper argues that action research can be considered as a text that is read differently by different individuals as a result of their different biographies. Importantly, different readings represent different positions with respect to valued forms of knowledge and the human interests they reflect and support. Three different examples of action research from the physical education literature are presented and analyzed from the perspective of knowledge and human interest, and a plea is made to recognize and explicate the assumptions implicit in our own interpretations of action research.

Social processes of health and physical education teachers’ identity formation: reproducing and changing culture

This paper examines Initial Teacher Education students’ experiences of participation in health and physical education (HPE) subject department offices and the impact on their understandings and identity formation. Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field, and practice along with Wenger’s communities of practice form the theoretical frame used in the paper. Data were collected using surveys and interviews with student‐teachers following their teaching practicum and analysed using coding and constant comparison. Emergent themes revealed students’ participation in masculine‐dominated sports, gendered body constructions, and repertoires of masculine domination. Findings are discussed in relation to their impact on student‐teachers’ learning, identity formation, and marginalizing practices in the department offices. Implications for teacher education and HPE are explored.

Professional learning places and spaces: the staffroom as a site of beginning teacher induction and transition

This paper argues that the staffroom is an important professional learning space where beginning teachers interact to understand who they are and the nature of their professional work. The authors highlight the theoretical importance of space and place in the construction and negotiation of beginning teacher subjectivities. To illustrate the staffroom as a particular place where important professional learning could occur the authors use two narratives based on the lived experiences of two beginning teachers, one in a primary context, the other secondary. The authors conclude by calling for greater research attention to the significance of the staffroom and its interaction with teacher subjectivities. At the level of practice we also call for the teaching profession to recognise staffrooms as important sites of professional learning and places that should support induction and mentoring of beginning teachers. Such recognition could enhance the retention, satisfaction, and effectiveness of new and experienced teachers alike.