Teachers, Teaching and the Social Construction of Gender Relations

abstract

This paper centres attention on the study of teaching in Physical Education (PE) and the social construction of gendered identities. Empirically it considers whether the Education Reform Act (ERA) 1988 and the introduction of a National Curriculum Physical Education (NCPE) in England and Wales in 1991 have presaged changes in the way in which teachers teach PE in the direction of an equitable curriculum. Drawing on data from an ongoing study of PE in secondary schools in England and Wales we claim that the noise of education reform and the weight of education legislation of recent years pressing teachers to engage in curriculum change have done very little to alter the way in which PE is taught in schools. Furthermore, we argue that within the subject, the persistence of pedagogical differences between teachers, especially between women and men, ensure that there is considerable ‘slippage’ between the intentions of ERA and the NCPE, to provide a common, broad and balanced curriculum for all pupils (aged 5‐16) and what children and young people experience in schools. Acknowledging that children learn as much from the manner or mode in which PE is taught in schools as they do from the content of the subject, we suggest that the conservatism and uni‐dimensional pedagogical activities of some teachers, nurtured and endorsed by the restorationist discourses embedded in UK central government policies on PE and Sport in schools, may be denying children, and boys in particular, the educational experiences that they need and deserve.