Göran Gerdin

Linnaeus University | lnu · Department of Sport Science

Despite clear messages from current physical education (PE) curricula about the importance of adopting socially critical perspectives, dominant discourses of gender relating to physical activity, bodies and health are being reproduced within this school subject. By drawing on interview data from a larger ethnographic account of boys’ PE, this paper...

Background: Pleasure is often a key feature of school physical education (PE) and, indeed, a lot of students find pleasure in and through PE while others do not. However, pleasure is rarely considered to be of educational value in the subject (Pringle, 2010). Further, since pleasure is linked to power (Foucault, 1980; Gerdin & Pringle, 2015) it is...

In a world of increasing diversity in which many established democracies are now consumed by capitalist individualism and protectionist ideals, a focus on equity and social justice is particularly pertinent. For many years, scholars have proposed that schools have the educational responsibility to prepare children for peaceful living in a heterogen...

In this paper, we describe and reflect on the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) methodology used to explore how secondary school health and physical education (HPE) teachers address social justice in their teaching practice. The paper is informed by data generated as part of an ongoing three-year international research project involving eight physi...

A focus on equity and social justice in school health and physical education (HPE) is pertinent in an era where there are growing concerns about the impact of neoliberal globalization and the precariousness of society. The aim of the present study was to identify school HPE teaching practices that promote social justice and more equitable health ou...

Background: Despite its ubiquity in education discourses, social justice is a highly contested concept that can be framed in different ways [Dowling, F., H. Fitzgerald, and A. Flintoff. 2012. Equity and Difference in Physical Education, Youth Sport and Health: A Narrative Approach. Routledge]. The ‘social’ element of social justice is always framed...

In a world of increasing diversity in which many established democracies are now consumed by capitalist individualism and protectionist ideals, a focus on equity and social justice is particularly pertinent (Azzarito et al., 2017). These present-day societal changes include growing levels of ethnic, religious, cultural, and sexual diversity, increa...

Research continues to show that school physical education and health (PEH) is complicit in the reproduction of inequities related to, for instance, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion and social class. In this paper, we present findings from a participatory action research (PAR) project with 11 PEH teachers at two upper-secondary schools in Swed...

School physical education (PE) is influenced by different discourses that play a crucial role not only in the (re)production of PE practices but also in shaping teacher subjectivities. This paper aims to explore how a PE teacher responds to, lives, and negotiates his embodied professional subjectivity over time. To achieve this, we employ an autobi...

Research on grading in physical education and health (PEH) continues to demonstrate both inequitable practices and outcomes some of which are associated with the students’ family background. A central goal for schools around the world is to compensate for students’ family backgrounds to promote greater educational equity. This study aimed to examin...

This research is contextualised by Freirean approaches to teacher education, which promote complex arrangements in the organisation of knowledge communities among teachers. Such communities are supportive of teachers’ learning by providing critique to advance socially-just teaching practices. Recently, Sanches Neto, Venâncio and Ovens (2021) found...

Although many studies have explored teachers’ and students’ perceptions of physical education (PE), the voices and beliefs of school principals about PE remain scarce in existing literature. In Norway, a new national curriculum for PE was introduced in 2020 making it timely to examine how key stakeholders, such as principals, understand and attempt...

Ball games are common content in school physical education and health (PEH), particularly in Sweden. However, criticism has been directed at ball games for focusing too much on performance and competition. In this paper, we explore the learning that occurs in ball games beyond subject-specific knowledge and skills. Data was generated through observ...

This paper draws on critical discourse analysis to examine how health and physical education (HPE) curricula from Sweden, Norway, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand may influence possibilities for the enactment of social justice in schools. The findings highlight the presence of social justice intentions across the five curricula as related t...

This chapter examines the nature of a socially critical physical education and the opportunities it provides for teachers and students to question and challenge assumptions about physical culture and take action to effect positive change. Physical education is a mandatory school subject for many young people around the world. It is a space that is...

Understandings of genders and sexualities are rapidly changing in most Western countries due to increasingly mobile and diverse populations, new digital technologies and a growing acceptance of, and backlash to, multiple and diverse sexualities and genders. In this changing context, the delivery of quality relationship and sexuality education is im...

Sammanfattning Syftet med den studie som ligger till grund för artikeln var att öka förståelsen för hur lärare i idrott och hälsa kan bedriva en inkluderande undervisning som kännetecknas av social rättvisa och där alla elever har möjlighet att delta och lyckas. Studien genomfördes inom ramen för ett internationellt samarbetsprojekt som undersökte...

Both becoming and unbecoming an elite athlete is a complex endeavour filled with mixed feelings and emotions some of which are related to certain moral and ethical dilemmas. Drawing on the Ancient Greeks’ emphasis on the aesthetics of existence, Foucault (1985), invited us to focus on the production or shaping of an ethical self through a restraine...

There is now a wealth of research on obesity both from biomedical and socially critical perspectives. However, less research has focused on the lived experiences of young children and particularly those who are perceived as 'sedentary'. This paper critically examines the issue of obesity as related to children's experiences of physical (in)activity...

Physicality has been and still is, an important part of the embodied identity of many physical education (PE) teachers. PE teachers understanding and representation of their bodies influence both their teaching and act as role models for their students. PE is therefore an important site for exploring how ideals of the body shape both understandings...

We currently find ourselves living in precarious times of segregation with old and new inequities on the rise. One space where such segregation is (re)produced is school physical education (PE). Despite decades of critical research and curriculum reforms, PE is still typically delivered with an emphasis on skill learning associated with competitive...

Visual culture affects the way people understand the world and themselves, contributing to the creation of certain roles and stereotypes, some of which are related to body image. This study focused on interrogating future physical education teachers’ beliefs about the body and physical activity to understand the construction of bodily subjectivitie...

The overall aim of this study was to explore how upper secondary school students (age 16–19) in Sweden perceive physical education and health (PEH) through the assessment practices they experience in this subject. In particular, the study aimed to examine the students’ experiences of what can be considered as valid knowledge and what the students p...

EDUHEALTH – What have we learnt about pedagogies for social justice and implications for HPE practice As a compulsory school subject in most Western societies, Health and Physical Education (HPE) is charged with providing important health outcomes for children and young people. However, as HPE teacher educators and researchers, we recognise and ac...

Assessment has been identified as an ongoing problem in physical education (PE). Since the student perspective on assessment is often neglected in research, in this paper, we will report on a study that explored students’ experiences of assessment in the Swedish school subject physical education and health (PEH). In particular, the aim of this stud...

We currently find ourselves living in precarious times, with old and new social inequities on the rise due to the challenges associated with an unprecedented rise of global migration and neoliberalism, amplified in our post COVID-19 world. Research has demonstrated that there is a high correlation between inequality at the societal level and the ov...

This chapter presents the third key theme of the EDUHEALTH project, that of ‘explicitly teaching about and acting on social inequities'. This theme highlights the ways and means of the participant-teachers' pedagogy when they explicitly identified and sought to address issues of inequality or social injustice as the core content or goal of their le...

This chapter introduces and discusses the first of the three themes identified in the analysis of the EDUHEALTH project data; ‘building relationships', as the findings clearly showed that teaching practices aimed at building ‘good' relationships are fundamental to pedagogies for social justice in HPE. In this chapter, it is demonstrated that buildi...

This book makes the case that school Health and Physical Education (HPE) can make a unique contribution to young people’s physical, emotional and social health outcomes when teachers of HPE engage in pedagogies for social justice that emphasise inclusion, democracy and equity. Drawing on observations and teacher interviews across Sweden, Norway and...

This chapter aims to explicate how broader social issues influence and constrain teachers' work in the name of pedagogies for social justice. The EDUHEALTH project reaffirmed the need to recognise that a teacher's pedagogical practices must be considered within the broader social context in which they are embedded. This chapter, therefore, begins b...

This chapter explains the fieldwork and analysis of data that was carried out as part of the EDUHEALTH project that led to findings presented later in the book. The fieldwork included a two-step process of multi-researcher, classroom observations using critical incident technique (CIT) methodology and follow-up post-lesson-observation stimulated re...

This chapter addresses the implications of the EDUHEALTH project for teachers of HPE by providing good examples of the participant-teachers' practice to show how they taught for and/or about social justice in HPE and what can be taught during HPETE. In this chapter, the participant-teachers' pedagogies for social justice are categorised into nine p...

This chapter examines previous research on the social justice agenda in HPE. It also includes research relating to health and physical education teacher education (HPETE) because much of the related literature pertinent to HPE emanates from HPETE. The chapter begins by briefly discussing the concept of social justice before mapping existing literat...

This final chapter begins with the participant researchers' individual reflections of the EDUHEALTH project and the new insights gained, which are presented as a shared narrative. The chapter then provides a summary of the project and its findings including critical commentary and reflections on the implications of the project for future HPE practi...

This chapter discusses the interpretative nature of the key concept of social justice and its relationship with other concepts such as inclusion, democracy, social cohesion and equitable outcomes as well as considers how they relate to HPE pedagogy. The chapter makes the case that before examining how HPE teachers can address social justice issues...

This chapter introduces the second theme to emerge from the EDUHEALTH findings, that of ‘teaching for social cohesion'. It examines the nature of the participant-teachers' inclusive practices and the role of HPE in educating for social cohesion. In this chapter, it is discussed how in many observed lessons, teaching for social cohesion was a key pa...

This paper addresses the implications of EDUHEALTH, a research project that explored how HPE teachers taught for and/or about social justice. In this paper, we present nine different but overlapping and complementary pedagogies for social justice as described by the HPE teachers themselves or the accounts of what we saw and recorded during our obse...

Like in many countries around the world, such as the UK, Australia and the US, a broader notion of ‘health’ was introduced in the Swedish Physical Education and Health (PEH) curriculum several years ago. In the current Swedish PEH curriculum, this broader notion of health, which includes a focus on physical but also mental health, as well as social...

Health and Physical Education (HPE) is a compulsory subject that is charged with providing important physical and social health outcomes for young people, yet as HPE teacher educators and researchers, we recognise that the way HPE is often taught in schools does not always provide equitable outcomes for all students. The aim of the EDUHEALTH proje...

Physical literacy (PL) has gained considerable attention and traction in the field of health and physical education (HPE) for some time now and can thus be seen as part of the HPE discourse. However, just as advocacy for PL has grown exponentially over the last decade(s), so have the critical voices raised over the universal adoption of this concep...

Background: A focus on equity, democracy and social justice in HPE is pertinent in an era where there are growing concerns about the impact of neoliberal globalisation and precariousness of society (Kirk 2020). Although there is advocacy for teaching approaches in HPE that address issues of social justice, there is limited empirical research of tea...

For more than 40 years, health and physical education (HPE) academics in universities and teacher education colleges have drawn attention to issues of social justice specific to the context of PE and advocated for teachers in fields, gymnasiums and other physical activity spaces to do a better job of promoting more equitable outcomes for all studen...

The aim of the EDUHEALTH project was to identify successful school HPE teaching practices that promote social justice and equitable health outcomes. This paper addresses the implications of the EDUHEALTH project for HPE by drawing on good examples of practice to show how the participant-teachers taught for and about social justice in HPE. In this p...

This paper is based an the international collaborative project - Education for Equitable Health Outcomes - The Promise of School Health and Physical Education (EDUHEALTH), which involves school health and physical education (HPE) teacher educators and researchers from Sweden, Norway and New Zealand. EDUHEALTH aims to make a meaningful contribution...

Physical Education (PE) teachers have previous experiences that both shape their particular beliefs about the role and purpose of this school subject as well as their pedagogical practice. The present study aims to examine and deepen our knowledge of future Spanish PE teachers' previous experiences of and beliefs about PE that condition their pedag...

Finding and describing the optimal path to elite athletic performance has, for a long time, been a challenge for researchers. This study examined Swedish tennis coaches’ everyday practices for creating athlete development environments and the environmental factors that promote or hinder athlete development. The study was conducted in 2018–2019 and...

The Health and Physical Education (HPE) profession has increasingly advocated for caring teacher-student relationships. In this paper, we draw on data from an international research project called ‘EDUHEALTH’ [Education for Equitable Health Outcomes – The Promise of School Health and Physical Education] to explore caring teaching and the complexity...

As a compulsory school subject in most Western societies, Health and Physical Education (HPE) is charged with providing important health outcomes for children and young people. The world summit on HPE in 1999, for example, stated that HPE provides the most effective means of providing all young people, regardless of their ability, disability, sex,...

The paper explores the concept of social justice in Health and Physical Education (HPE) as constituted and addressed across three different countries – Sweden, Norway and New Zealand – and how HPE teaching practices for social justice may be understood from regulative, normative and cultural/cognitive perspectives. Although much has been written ab...

Despite a policy environment in US K-12 Physical Education (PE) that calls for the ‘full inclusion of all students’, research that establish schools, PE and sport as sites of heteronormative and masculinising practices continues to be reported. In this chapter, we adopt a Foucauldian pleasure lens to interrogate the particular games of truth/truth...

Within the overlapping fields of the sociology of sport, physical education and health education, the use of critical theories and the critical research paradigm has grown in scope. Yet what social impact has this research had? This book considers the capacity of critical research and associated social theory to play an active role in challenging s...

Drawing on our own experiences as physical education (PE) and physical education teacher education (PETE) teachers and researchers, we recognise the potential of PE to lay a foundation for a healthy and active lifestyle, yet we are also cognisant that the way PE is taught does not always provide equitable or positive outcomes for all students. In t...

Description of Symposium: Although school Health and Physical Education (HPE) has the potential to contribute to lifelong health and well-being, the way HPE is conceptualized and taught will impact on its ability to provide equitable outcomes across gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion and social class. The genesis of this symposium comes from t...

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 o...

Despite research over the past three decades that has examined links between masculinity, sport and Physical Education (PE), exclusionary practices and cultures that privilege some boys and masculinities at the expense of marginalised others are still commonly reported. With an historical legacy as a masculinity-making device, attempts to disrupt h...

The relative age effect (RAE) has been extensively debated and researched in both popular media and academic discourse. This study examined RAE in Swedish tennis players born in 1998-2001. The study was conducted in 2015-2016 and includes all ranked Swedish tennis players (n = 1835) registered in the Swedish Tennis Association database from the yea...

In this paper we draw from Foucault, particularly his writings on the technologies of self, to problematize and reimagine understandings of what it means to coach effectively and ethically. In recognising the difficulty of operationalising Foucauldian ideas, we provide a narrative-of-self to reveal how an elite tennis coach, Göran Gerdin, adopted F...

Pleasure is often a key feature of school physical education (PE) and, indeed, a lot of students find pleasure in and through PE while others do not. However, pleasure is rarely considered to be of educational value in the subject. Further, since pleasure is linked to power it is in fact not entirely straightforward to legitimise the educational va...

Contemporary physical education in Sweden is characterized by a strong tradition of sport and ball games which school curriculum reforms in the last few decades seem to have had no significant impact on. Despite new curricula in Sweden, HPE teachers’ practices remain unchanged. HPE teachers still have problems catering to the needs of all their pup...

School HPE makes a unique contribution to the physical, cognitive, emotional and social development of young people (Morgan & Burke, 2008). The world summit on HPE in 1999 (Doll-Tepper & Scoretz, 2001) stated that this school subject provides the most effective means of providing all young people, regardless of their ability, disability, sex, age,...

Using visual ethnography, this book explores the many forms of pleasures that boys derive in and through the spaces and their bodies in physical education. Employing the works of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, Gerdin examines how pleasure is connected to identity, schooling, and power relations, and demonstrates how discourses of sport, fitness...

This article examines how space and pleasure are discursively interlinked in boys’ performances of gender in school physical education (PE). Although previous research has implicated spaces in the production of gendered identities and unequal power relations, there exists a gap in the current literature focusing on how space also contributes to ple...

The spaces of schooling are not mere settings or backdrops where students’ learning take place, but are implicated in the production of knowledge and identities/subjectivities – spaces embody specific values, beliefs and traditions. In this paper, we draw on visual ethnographic data from an all-boys school in New Zealand to examine how the spaces o...

The role that school health and physical education (HPE) plays in the making of physically active and healthy citizens continues to be rearticulated within the field of HPE practice. In Australasia, for example, this is evident in HPE curricula changes that now span almost two decades with ongoing advocacy for greater recognition of socially critic...

Gard (2008), Booth (2009) and Pringle (2010) argue that if critical PE scholars want to change the social influence associated with dominated discourses of gender, which have previously been subject to sustained critique, there is a need to examine the discourses of PE pleasure. By drawing on visual ethnographic data from an all-boys’ secondary sch...

In taking heed of the so-called ‘spatial turn’ in social theory this paper explores how the spatial intersects with boys’ performances of gender and (dis)pleasures in school physical education (PE). In particular, the paper aims to contribute to our understanding of how the organisation and implementation of physical and social spaces in PE can be...

General description on research questions, objectives and theoretical framework: School Health and Physical Education (HPE) can be an important cornerstone of producing physically active and healthy people that will contribute to the wellbeing of society as a whole. However, our definition and understanding of what it means to be ‘physically active...

Kirk (2010) 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 resul...

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...

This paper examines how space and pleasure are discursively interlinked in boys’ performances of gender in physical education (PE). Although previous research has implicated space in the production of gendered identities and unequal power relations, there exists a gap in current literature focusing on how space contributes to pleasure in PE. The pa...

In this thesis I argue that in order to change the social influence of dominant discourses of gender in PE, which have previously been subject to sustained critique, there is a need to examine the discourses that constitute pleasure within PE. Such an examination is justified due to the broad social significance of pleasure but specific absence of...

Although, Foucault’s concept of power has been aptly utilized in post-structural qualitative PE research in recent years (e.g. Gore, 1998; Kirk, 1997; Webb & Macdonald, 2007; Webb, McCaughtry, & MacDonald, 2004; Wright, 1997, 2000), power as producing pleasure is noticeably absent in this body of research. Indeed, Gard (2008), Booth (2009) and Prin...

This chapter explores boys’ embodied performances of gender in school Physical Education (PE). Using a participatory visual research approach, involving video recordings of boys participating in PE, the boys’ representations and interpretations of the visual data are explored during both focus groups and individual interviews. In order to interpret...

This chapter discusses the methodological underpinnings of a doctoral study that examined boys' performances of gender in physical education (PE) at a single-sex secondary school in Auckland, New Zealand. Initial findings are also presented; however, they only serve to demonstrate the potential of such an approach and not as an exhaustive report of...

This paper will report on findings from a study that examined boys' performances of gender in school Physical Education (PE). Using a participatory visual research approach, involving video recordings of boys participating in PE, the boys' representations and interpretations of the visual data were explored during both focus groups and individual i...

This paper will report on findings from a study that examined boys’ performances of gender in Physical Education (PE) at a single-sex secondary school in Auckland, New Zealand. Using a participatory visual research approach (Pink, 2001; Prosser, 2007), involving video recordings of boys participating in PE, the boys’ representations and interpretat...

Azzarito (2010) has recently called for the inclusion of research methods, specifically visual methodologies (VM), which involve young people’s representations and interpretations of their experiences in Physical Education (PE) contexts. This chapter examines VM in PE research and discusses the methodological underpinnings of a doctoral study that...

This paper will report on initial findings from a doctoral study that uses video recordings to investigate boys’ embodied performances of masculinities in school physical education. Many studies have investigated girls’ alienation and lack of participation in physical education (e.g. Hastie, 1998; Ennis, 1999; Azzarito, Solmon & Harrison, 2006). Ho...

The role of schools as agencies in the social construction of gender has been well researched and efforts to design the most appropriate learning environment often lead to discussions of single-sex versus co-educational schooling. Physical education is a subject where content and grouping arrangements can contribute to stereotypical expectations an...