Tales from the playing field: black and minority ethnic students’ experiences of physical education teacher education

Abstract

This article presents findings from recent research exploring black and minority ethnic (BME) students’ experiences of Physical Education teacher education (PETE) in England (Flintoff, 2008). Despite policy initiatives to increase the ethnic diversity of teacher education cohorts, BME students are under-represented in PETE, making up just 2.94% of the 2007/8 national cohort, the year in which this research was conducted. Drawing on in-depth interviews and questionnaires with 25 BME students in PETE, the study sought to contribute to our limited knowledge and understanding of racial and ethnic difference in PE, and to show how ‘race,’ ethnicity and gender are interwoven in individuals’ embodied, everyday experiences of learning how to teach. In the article, two narratives in the form of fictional stories are used to present the findings. I suggest that narratives can be useful for engaging with the experiences of those previously silenced or ignored within Physical Education (PE); they are also designed to provoke an emotional as well as an intellectual response in the reader. Given that teacher education is a place where we should be engaging students, emotionally and politically, to think deeply about teaching, education and social justice and their place within these, I suggest that such stories of difference might have a useful place within a critical PETE pedagogy.

Keywords:

• ‘race’ gender
• intersectionality
• physical education teacher education
• narrative

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to the students who shared their experiences so willingly with us, and to the full research team: Anne Chappell, Cathy Gower, Saul Keyworth, Julia Lawrence, Julie Money, Sarah Squires and Louisa Webb. This article is dedicated to Louisa Webb who died from cancer in January 2012.

Notes

1. Despite the fact that amendment to UK legislation has strengthened the requirement for all public authorities to promote ‘race’ equality and good ‘race’ relations (Commission for Racial Equality/now the Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2008), research such as Callender, et al. (2006), suggest there is little evidence that the gathering of statistics on ethnicity actually results in changed practices.

2. I use the term ‘black feminism’ here, and draw mainly on the work of black British feminists, whilst recognising the dangers that this might suggest, erroneously, a homogeneous black feminist ‘voice.’

3. Elsewhere I have argued for a ‘middle ground’ approach between modernism and post modernism, to explore racialised and gendered experiences of PE and PETE (Flintoff et al. (2008); Flintoff 2012). Drawing on Archer et al. 2001, 42), research adopting such a position ‘share a general treatment of ‘race’, class, gender sexuality and disability as fluid, shifting and non-discrete identities and hold a common awareness and commitment to addressing the associated, very ‘real’ inequalities’. Alternative frameworks, such as Hill Collins’ Matrix of Domination , or Critical Race Theory have been used (e.g. Stride [2012; 2013] has used Hill Collins to explore Muslim girls’ experiences of PE and sport; Hylton [2008], Critical Race theory for an examination of sport).

4. I recognise the important way in which language can construct difference and acknowledge the complex debates over the use of terms such as Asian, black , black and ethnic minority. I use the term Asian here because of its use by the (then) TDA in their monitoring. In the UK, the term Asian is commonly used to describe people of Pakistani, Indian, and Bangladeshi heritage. See Aspinall (2002) for a useful discussion.

5. The specific context of the research in England is important here, particularly in relation to the social and cultural organisation of PE. In many secondary schools (11–18 years) in England, boys and girls continue to be taught separately in single sex groups, with different curricular activities being offered, reflecting strong gendered ideas about physicality (Scraton 1992). Whilst schools do offer dance to mixed groups, this is often to younger aged children (11/12 years), and delivered by women, not men teachers, and would rarely form a significant part of the curriculum (Waddington, Malcolm, and Cobb 1998; Evans, Davies, and Penney 1996). Although figures are difficult to obtain, white, young men predominate in key decision making positions such as heads of department (Penney, Houlihan, and Eley 2002).