Daryl Siedentop’s Legacy and the French Didactique Tradition: Influences and Convergences

ABSTRACT

This article is about Daryl Siedentop’s legacy and the reciprocal influences of his thinking on the French didactique research in physical education (PE). The introduction points out the deep knowledge of French PE Daryl Siedentop had gained through his international activities and how his theoretical and methodological contributions resonated and inspired the French didactique research. A first section presents some key links between the Sport Education model and the didactic approach in terms of curricular choices. The second section emphasizes the distinctive but complementary research perspectives of the classroom ecology and the joint action in didactics for the future of PE. The conclusion returns to Daryl Siedentop’s ontological and epistemological viewpoints and their many common aspects with the French didactique tradition.

KEYWORDS:

• Physical Education
• Sport Education
• Classroom Ecological Paradigm
• French Didactique Tradition
• Epistemology
• Research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In the world of French-speaking education, the term “didactique” does not have the disparaging meaning “didactic” may have in the English language. It refers to the study of teaching and learning with a focus on the content of knowledge to be learned as a transactional and decisive element of teacher-student relationships. In this paper the French word “didactique” will be used to denote this specific educational tradition, whereas the English adjective “didactic” will be used to translate some key concepts of the field, so as not to make the text too heavy.

2. Jacqueline Marsenach, who first initiated classroom research from a didactical standpoint, supervised my doctoral thesis (1991). She opened a new line of research in PE that is nowadays pursued against the background of the Joint Action in Didactics framework.

3. https://aiesep.org/about/history/.

4. Marielle Tousignant, who completed her doctorate with Daryl Siedentop at Ohio State University (OSU) in 1982, first used Doyle’s classroom ecology paradigm (Doyle, 1977) to analyze students’ cooperation during academic work (Tousignant, 1982, Tousignant & Siedentop, 1983).

5. For example, in 2003, when, as a visiting professor at OSU, I was invited to present French didactique research to the doctoral students, I discovered that the university library had a subscription to the French-language professional journal for physical education and teacher education (“La revue Education Physique et Sport”) of which Daryl Siedentop was a regular reader.

6. Liber Amicorum … honoring a friend and colleague. A tribute to Daryl Siedentop (van der Mars et al., 2002).

7. Among the increasing literature in the field (mainly in French-speaking journals) these references also indicate a selection of articles and chapters written in English related to the didactique research in PE in different countries.

8. That is to girls, boys and the students who do not recognize themselves in the binary gender sport assignments imposed by such curricula.

9. As developed by Martinand (1989) in Science Education.

10. The epistemological backgrounds, concepts and analytical tools, specific contributions and limits of both research frameworks are presented in depth in Amade-Escot and Venturini (2015) and in Leriche et al. (2016) and summarized by these last authors in a table (p. 512).