Gendering processes in the field of physical education

Abstract

In Finnish secondary schools, girls and boys are taught physical education (PE) in separate groups. A male teacher normally teaches the boys and a female teacher teaches the girls. Focusing on PE teachers’ comments in two different ethnographic studies of seventh graders (13–14‐year‐olds), we examine the processes that reproduce or challenge the gender system and the possibilities of agency in the context of PE. Our findings suggest that the bodies of male students are regarded as strong and are, therefore, appreciated by both female and male teachers. Moreover, male teachers’ competence in PE is evaluated higher than that of the female teachers. None of the teachers questioned the male teachers’ ability to teach girls, however, heteronormativity arose as an issue. There were more doubts over female teachers’ competence to teach boys.

Keywords:

• physical education
• gender
• body
• school
• ethnography

Acknowledgements

We thank all the PE teachers and students involved in our studies. We also thank KitKa‐postgraduate‐seminar participants, Docent Tarja Tolonen, PhD Sanna Aaltonen, Professor Klaus Helkama and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on this manuscript.

Notes

1. For example, Scraton (1986), Connell (1987), Talbot (1993), Wright (1996), Parker (1996), Swain (2000), Gorely, Holroyd, and Kirk (2003), Lehtonen (2003), Martino and Pallotta‐Chiarolli (2003), Oliver and Lalik (2004), Brown and Evans (2004), Brown (2005) and Hills (2006).

2. Referring to Joan Acker’s idea (e.g. 1992).

3. Bourdieu has been criticised for an emphasis on reproduction in the conceptualisation of the habitus. We argue, in line with some feminist researchers (McNay 1999; Reay 2004), that habitus carries the possibility for change.

4. Berg was interested in the kind of meanings gender is given in PE in secondary school, what kind of hierarchies can be found in the goals and practices of PE and how (and in which situations) the body performs gender. The common themes of the interviews were PE lessons, leisure activities, clothing, embodiment, bullying, health education, researchers’ presence in lessons, and themes brought up by students.

5. This project was supported by the Academy of Finland. Elina Lahelma conducted two of these interviews, Tuija Metso conducted two and Tuula Gordon one.

6. We have simplified the interview speech in order to make it more readable. All the students’ names used are pseudonyms.

7. In Finland there are no laws concerning the teaching of female and male students together in PE. In competitive team sports at the national level there are normally different leagues for females and males. In leisure activities it is possible to participate in mixed teams, but these are not common.

8. The school had an emphasis on expressive arts; therefore the majority of students were female.

9. In girls’ PE the controlling of the body has been traditionally emphasised and physical contact has been avoided. Boys’ PE has included more team games and competitiveness (Wuolio 1993; Meinander 1994). At present both practise, in general, the same activities. Dance and expressive movement, however, have been for girls only, notwithstanding joint dance lessons.

10. ‘Jenkka’ which refers to a traditional Finnish folk dance.

11. The teacher of technical handicraft teaches predominantly boys, as well, because this is a voluntary subject that girls seldom choose.

12. The Law for Comprehensive Schools (628/1998) mentions that teachers have the right to use force to remove a disruptive student who exposes others to danger.

13. Stall bars are gymnastics bars; ‘eye‐of‐a‐needle’ and ‘hip‐swinging’ are gymnastic movements.

14. Hurting ‘the nuts’ came up also in the other boys’ group while they were stretching. It is interesting that these concerns only came up while boys had activities which have traditionally been connected to femininity.

15. Only one of the teachers in these studies was relatively young, the rest were in their fifties or sixties.