A reconceptualization of physical education: The intersection of gender/race/social class

Abstract

Over the past several years, numerous reports have reported data documenting declining participation in physical activity among youth. We argue that the gender, race and social class differences in these data have not been an important consideration, and that understanding the implications of these differences is crucial for improving physical education curriculum. Because schooling should carry the responsibility of educating children to adopt and maintain a physically active lifestyle, the most prominent physical education curriculum in the United States, the sport-based physical education curriculum, requires the reconceptualization of current practice. As a basis for this reconceptualization, we begin by extending the analysis of gender as a unitary category to a dynamic relational analysis of gender, race and social class. Therefore, by using feminism/poststructuralism as a theoretical framework, we deconstruct historically dominant gender, race, and social class discourses around the body in sports and physical education to demonstrate the fluidity and contradictory nature of these categories. Finally, we conclude by highlighting the usefulness of feminism/poststructuralism for investigating racialized masculinities and femininities in future physical education research, and suggest pedagogical approaches that might further reconceptualize today's multi-activity sport-based physical education curricula and pedagogy.