Over the last 40 years, there has been an expansion, what some have termed an “explosion” (Green, 2001) in the provision of Physical Education (PE) related qualifications, both academic and vocational, in English Secondary schools. In the context of the emergence and rapid growth of the 14-19 PE curriculum, a number of issues have emerged for both PE teachers and their pupils (Green, 2008). It is important to consider these issues and the implications for PE teachers and their pupils. This research study explored the perspectives of secondary school PE teachers towards the subject of PE within the 14-19 curriculum. Specifically, the research focused on PE teachers’ perceptions relating to (i) the broader social processes which have influenced the development of 14-19 PE, and (ii) the impact of the development of 14-19 PE for the subject of PE, PE teachers themselves, and their pupils in English secondary schools. 52 semi-structured interviews were completed over a 14 month period. The research participants, from 22 different secondary schools, consisted of both male and female PE teachers who held varying positions in schools, from PE teachers through Heads of PE to Assistant Headteachers and Headteachers. The research participants were aged between 23 to 59 years of age. The level of teaching experience ranged from between 3 months to 38 years, with 616 years of teaching experience between them. The primary data collected from the interviews were analysed both inductively and deductively. That is to say, first, using a ground theory methodology, emerging themes were identified that were ‘grounded’ within the data itself. Second, the sensitizing concepts offered by a figurational sociology perspective were used to interpret and ‘make sense’ of the themes emerging from the data. The key findings from this study have been broken down into two main themes. With regard to the first theme – PE teachers’ perspectives on the development of the 14-19 PE curriculum (in general, and in their schools in particular) – it was evident that there had been an expansion, over the last decade, of the accreditation opportunities available to more pupils, across more schools, through 14-19 PE, with the ‘drivers’ of such change being located within both ‘local’ and ‘national’ contexts. In terms of the second theme – PE teachers’ perspectives of the impact (both intended and unintended outcomes) of the development of PE within the 14-19 curriculum – it was evident that PE teachers’ views centred initially on the benefits of 14-19 PE for their pupils, and their departments and schools. However, it was evident that there were benefits to be had from 14-19 PE for PE teachers themselves, which meant a change in their ‘working climate’, although there were unplanned consequences also. For PE teachers this meant a change in their ‘work demands’. Sociologically speaking, it is suggested that 14-19 PE may be seen to have developed within a context of complex developmental processes, more specifically through networks of interdependency, characterised by power balances/ratios, and which have led to outcomes both intended and unintended. Specifically, it was suggested that the nature and purposes of PE and the role of PE teachers has markedly changed, indeed transformed. From the findings of this study, recommendations are proposed that focus upon policy implications and future developments, particularly in relation to the unintended outcomes of the development of 14-19 PE.

The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to explore how adolescent girls perceive and feel about their bodies while they engage in physical education and how they navigate ways to feel comfortable within their own bodies and the physical education environment and (b) to engage in student-centered exploratory projects. Participants were seven ninth and tenth grade girls. Data were collected from focus group and individual interviews, critical incidents forms, journals, and descriptive field notes from observations. Data were analyzed using content analysis and open, axial, and selective coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Results indicated that four primary factors positively and negatively influenced their thoughts, feelings, and experiences in physical education (a) gender issues in coeducation classes, (b) activities offered, (c) 'people' in the class, and (d) public display in physical education. First, the complexity of gender issues in coeducation classes such as; male dominance, gender segregation, and gender stereotypes, influenced their comfort and type of participation in physical education. Second, prior experience and design of the activity enhanced or exacerbated their perceived competence and opportunity for success. Third, friends and other classmates affected whether they socialized and felt comfortable in physical education class. Finally, the public nature of physical education caused participants to fear being embarrassed and exposed their bodies, which allowed them to compare their bodies and skill ability to other girls in class. Collectively, participants' comfort embodied these factors that affected their thoughts, feelings, and experiences in physical education. Participants' comfort influenced whether they did not participate, participated (i.e., blending in), or actually participated. Participants purposely created strategies to thrive or survive in physical education based on their comfort. Furthermore, participants created informational products as a result of their exploratory projects, which were dispersed among faculty and students. Results suggest that adolescent girls are willing to share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences when they are provided a comfortable and safe space where they can engage in discourse among their peers. Adolescent girls have a deeper understanding of how they think and feel within their bodies and their stories need to be told and heard.

With recent developments in Scottish education characterised by less prescriptive curriculum guidance, educators, and teachers in particular, are being presented with the opportunity to become more active participants in the curriculum innovation process (Scottish Executive, 2004). This thesis argues, however, that a more participatory curriculum innovation approach contrasts with the centrally-driven top-down curriculum projects that have held currency over the last 30 years; as such, the experiences of most teachers, and their managers, have not helped build the capacity to cope with and influence the curriculum innovation process. Following on, it is suggested there is an urgent need to develop curriculum innovation approaches that specifically set out to help educators construct these innovation-related capacities. The thesis proposes that a more participatory curriculum innovation approach may be achieved by extending concepts from current educational ‘change knowledge’ (Fullan, 1993) to include key principles from complexity-oriented theories (Biesta, 2010; Morrison, 2010). A complex ecological approach (CEA) is presented in which curriculum innovation efforts are portrayed as complex, self organising, emergent, non-linear and ambiguously bounded phenomena influenced by the ongoing interaction of contextual factors and personal capacities. The applicability of this complex ecological approach is explored by means of a case study focused on my personal curriculum innovation efforts in primary physical education (PE) over a twenty-four year period from 1987-2011 in two countries: England and Scotland. I provide a detailed retrospective analysis of the ‘Developmental Physical Education Project’ (DPEP) to explore the extent to which the macro, meso and micro contexts in which I worked and my personal capacities have influenced my curriculum innovation efforts over this twenty-four year period. In particular, the nature of my developmental PE innovation efforts, characterised as complex, self-organising, emergent, non-linear and ambiguously bounded is explored. Analysis reveals the important influence of different contextual factors on the nature of these innovation efforts, particularly the prevailing policy-making and policy-dissemination processes and the support of micro-level management. However, the most significant finding is the central role played by my personal capacities in shaping innovation efforts that, over time, are self-organising, emergent, ambiguously bounded and non-linear. In particular, the analysis highlights how six key capacities; reflection, inquiry, emotions, vision, knowledge and relationships, all played a key role in helping me cope with and influence the innovation process. Given these findings, the thesis concludes by proposing ways in which the CEA may help educators, and teachers in particular, better understand, negotiate and influence future curriculum innovation agendas.

No description available.

This study investigates physical education (PE) teachers careers and professional development in the context of Taiwanese junior high schools (pupils aged 12-14), where a national educational reform the Grade 1-9 Curriculum was launched in 2001. In particular, from teachers perspectives, this study addresses questions about (1) how and why selected Taiwanese PE teachers engage in professional learning over their careers; (2) the impact of the introduction of a new curriculum and policies; (3) ways in which professional learning could be supported more effectively. Eight case study PE teachers, who simultaneously worked as local coordinators, were invited as participants. Life history method was followed by data analysis using constructivist grounded theory to generate findings at three levels: individual life histories, cross-case themes and a theoretical framework. In addition, the process of data analysis, both manually and using a popular software package, is critically compared. The findings suggest that teachers beliefs about professional development were closely connected to their individual career histories, and these were influenced by a set of personal and contextual factors in relation to their professional lives. Moreover, despite a major government curriculum reform, the implementation of the new curriculum resulted in very little change to these teachers practices, because: (1) the curriculum guidelines were very flexible and were difficult for teachers to fully understand; and (2) there was a lack of evaluation of, or accountability for, teachers practices. This study suggests that the Taiwanese government s aspirations for radical changes to teachers practice (both teaching and learning) are more likely to be realised by ensuring that policies and the new curriculum are based on a more realistic understanding of teachers lives and careers.

O objetivo desta pesquisa é analisar as práticas discursivas presentes em três documentos curriculares de Educação Física da rede municipal de Sorocaba e as relações de saber-poder que permearam o processo de construção do currículo oficial, elaborado em 2012. Trata-se de delinear como o currículo é inserido numa rede de poder, sustentado, por sua vez, por determinados tipos de saberes. Para tanto, apoio-me nas contribuições do pensamento foucaultiano, fazendo uso de algumas noções, tais como: governamentalidade, enunciado, formação discursiva, além das formulações provenientes dos estudos curriculares de orientação pós-crítica. Como caminho metodológico utilizo a cartografia de inspiração deleuze-guattariana para situar algumas ações políticas da Secretaria da Educação de Sorocaba e o trajeto de construção do currículo oficial de Educação Física, articulando a análise documental e entrevistas semiestruturadas para a coleta de dados. Valho-me também das contribuições da análise de discurso foucaultiana para perscrutar os discursos presentes nos documentos curriculares de Educação Física. Na primeira etapa investigativa, a cartografia indica que as ações políticas da Secretaria da Educação de Sorocaba aplicadas, sobretudo, pelo terceiro setor, possuem conexões com ideais neoliberais. Aponta também que a trajetória da construção curricular oficial sugere uma desvalorização da Educação Física comparada a outras disciplinas que compõem a matriz curricular desta rede de ensino e que essa construção curricular baseou-se, principalmente, em decisões não democráticas, valendose de posições de vantagem nas relações de poder devido à hierarquia institucional. Na análise de enunciados dos dispositivos curriculares, que constitui a segunda etapa investigativa, verifico que tanto a organização curricular nas dimensões procedimentais, conceituais e atitudinais quanto a organização curricular por competências, respaldadas pelo discurso científico da psicologia educacional, são tomadas como nucleares nos documentos curriculares investigados. No currículo oficial, o enunciado referente à gestão curricular se utiliza de estratégias discursivas para o controle e governo da conduta dos professores, tornando-os dóceis e produtivos em suas ações. Ainda, ao buscar dissipar as diferenças e oposições, em discurso favorável ao hibridismo, desloca algumas manifestações e práticas corporais como conteúdos opcionais, enquadrando-as, assim, em uma perspectiva de currículo turístico. Por fim, a ordem dos saberes que legitimam os textos dos dispositivos curriculares, indica um campo de coexistências, oriundos da formação discursiva da psicologia educacional e das teorias curriculares acríticas da Educação Física, projetando sujeitos empreendedores de si mesmos. / The objective of this research is to analyze the discursive practices presented in three curriculum documents of Physical Education from Sorocaba municipal education network and relations of power-knowledge that permeated the building process of the official curriculum, developed in 2012. This is to outline how the curriculum is inserted in a power network, supported by certain types of knowledge. For this purpose, reference, I stand up for the contributions of Foucault\'s thinking, making use of some notions such as: governmentality, statement, discursive formation, archive, apart from the formulations of curriculum studies post-critical orientation. As a methodological way I use the cartography deleuze-guattarian inspiration to state of the political actions from the Department of Education from Sorocaba and the construction of Physical Education curriculum, articulating document analysis and semi-structured interviews to collect data. I also use contributions from Foucault\'s discourse analysis to scrutinize the discourses presented in the Physical Education curriculum texts. In the first investigative step, the cartography indicates that some of the Education department from Sorocaba political actions implemented mainly by the third sector, have connections with neoliberal ideas. It also points out that the trajectory of the official curriculum construction suggests a depreciation of physical education compared to other disciplines that make up the curriculum of that school system and curriculum construction that relied mainly on non democratic decisions, drawing on positions advantage in power relations due to the institutional hierarchy. In the analysis of statements of curricular device, which constitute the second investigative step, I notice that both of the curricular organization in procedural, conceptual and attitudinal dimensions and the curriculum organization by competences supported by scientific discourse of educational psychology are taken as the nuclear curricular documents investigated. The official curriculum, the statement regarding curriculum management of discursive strategies are used to control and rule the conduct of teachers, making them docile and productive in their actions. Yet, seeking for dispelling the differences and oppositions in favor of hybridity discourse displaces some manifestations and bodily practices as optional content, framing them as well, from the perspective of tourism curriculum. Finally, the order of knowledges that legitimate texts curricular device indicates a field of coexistences, derived from the discursive formation of educational psychology and uncritical theories of physical education curriculum, designing subjects entrepreneurs themselves.

O objetivo desta pesquisa é analisar as práticas discursivas presentes em três documentos curriculares de Educação Física da rede municipal de Sorocaba e as relações de saber-poder que permearam o processo de construção do currículo oficial, elaborado em 2012. Trata-se de delinear como o currículo é inserido numa rede de poder, sustentado, por sua vez, por determinados tipos de saberes. Para tanto, apoio-me nas contribuições do pensamento foucaultiano, fazendo uso de algumas noções, tais como: governamentalidade, enunciado, formação discursiva, além das formulações provenientes dos estudos curriculares de orientação pós-crítica. Como caminho metodológico utilizo a cartografia de inspiração deleuze-guattariana para situar algumas ações políticas da Secretaria da Educação de Sorocaba e o trajeto de construção do currículo oficial de Educação Física, articulando a análise documental e entrevistas semiestruturadas para a coleta de dados. Valho-me também das contribuições da análise de discurso foucaultiana para perscrutar os discursos presentes nos documentos curriculares de Educação Física. Na primeira etapa investigativa, a cartografia indica que as ações políticas da Secretaria da Educação de Sorocaba aplicadas, sobretudo, pelo terceiro setor, possuem conexões com ideais neoliberais. Aponta também que a trajetória da construção curricular oficial sugere uma desvalorização da Educação Física comparada a outras disciplinas que compõem a matriz curricular desta rede de ensino e que essa construção curricular baseou-se, principalmente, em decisões não democráticas, valendose de posições de vantagem nas relações de poder devido à hierarquia institucional. Na análise de enunciados dos dispositivos curriculares, que constitui a segunda etapa investigativa, verifico que tanto a organização curricular nas dimensões procedimentais, conceituais e atitudinais quanto a organização curricular por competências, respaldadas pelo discurso científico da psicologia educacional, são tomadas como nucleares nos documentos curriculares investigados. No currículo oficial, o enunciado referente à gestão curricular se utiliza de estratégias discursivas para o controle e governo da conduta dos professores, tornando-os dóceis e produtivos em suas ações. Ainda, ao buscar dissipar as diferenças e oposições, em discurso favorável ao hibridismo, desloca algumas manifestações e práticas corporais como conteúdos opcionais, enquadrando-as, assim, em uma perspectiva de currículo turístico. Por fim, a ordem dos saberes que legitimam os textos dos dispositivos curriculares, indica um campo de coexistências, oriundos da formação discursiva da psicologia educacional e das teorias curriculares acríticas da Educação Física, projetando sujeitos empreendedores de si mesmos. / The objective of this research is to analyze the discursive practices presented in three curriculum documents of Physical Education from Sorocaba municipal education network and relations of power-knowledge that permeated the building process of the official curriculum, developed in 2012. This is to outline how the curriculum is inserted in a power network, supported by certain types of knowledge. For this purpose, reference, I stand up for the contributions of Foucault\'s thinking, making use of some notions such as: governmentality, statement, discursive formation, archive, apart from the formulations of curriculum studies post-critical orientation. As a methodological way I use the cartography deleuze-guattarian inspiration to state of the political actions from the Department of Education from Sorocaba and the construction of Physical Education curriculum, articulating document analysis and semi-structured interviews to collect data. I also use contributions from Foucault\'s discourse analysis to scrutinize the discourses presented in the Physical Education curriculum texts. In the first investigative step, the cartography indicates that some of the Education department from Sorocaba political actions implemented mainly by the third sector, have connections with neoliberal ideas. It also points out that the trajectory of the official curriculum construction suggests a depreciation of physical education compared to other disciplines that make up the curriculum of that school system and curriculum construction that relied mainly on non democratic decisions, drawing on positions advantage in power relations due to the institutional hierarchy. In the analysis of statements of curricular device, which constitute the second investigative step, I notice that both of the curricular organization in procedural, conceptual and attitudinal dimensions and the curriculum organization by competences supported by scientific discourse of educational psychology are taken as the nuclear curricular documents investigated. The official curriculum, the statement regarding curriculum management of discursive strategies are used to control and rule the conduct of teachers, making them docile and productive in their actions. Yet, seeking for dispelling the differences and oppositions in favor of hybridity discourse displaces some manifestations and bodily practices as optional content, framing them as well, from the perspective of tourism curriculum. Finally, the order of knowledges that legitimate texts curricular device indicates a field of coexistences, derived from the discursive formation of educational psychology and uncritical theories of physical education curriculum, designing subjects entrepreneurs themselves.

The problem of this study was to obtain the professional opinion of male physical education graduates of North Texas State University with respect to appropriateness of their professional preparation in association with their teaching experiences. An opinionated questionnaire was developed and used to collect the data. Standard and Advanced First Aid and Safety Education, Teaching Physical Education in Secondary Schools and Foundations of Health were the required courses found to be most valuable to the participants in their teaching experiences. Basketball, track and field, football and volleyball were the activities most often used by the participants in their teaching activities.