‘You have to find your slant, your groove:’ one physical education teacher's efforts to employ transformative pedagogy

ABSTRACT

Background: Teaching for social good and inequity has been presented as needed in sport pedagogy research. However, very little is known how transformative pedagogical practices that teach for social good are implemented and sustained at the elementary level.

Purpose: This digital ethnographic study sought to describe one elementary school physical education (PE) teacher's attempt to employ transformative pedagogy (TP).

Method: Cochran-Smith's [1998. “Teaching for Social Change: Toward a Grounded Theory of Teacher Education.” In The International Handbook of Educational Change, edited by A. Hargreaves, A. Lieberman, M. Fullan, and D. Hopkins, 916–952. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004. Walking the Road: Race, Diversity, and Social Justice in Teacher Education. New York: Teachers College Press] pedagogical principles for social justice education (SJE) drove our data collection and analysis. Seven qualitative methods were employed to collect data about Harry's pedagogies, organizational structures, and the content he taught. These were formal and informal interviews, conversations, short films, document collection, social media accounts, and an electronic journal. Data were analyzed using both inductive and deductive methods [Patton 2015. Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage].

Findings: Harry's TP and the factors that facilitated and limited his practice were uncovered within five main themes: (a) creating communities of learners through restorative practice principles, (b) building on what students bring to school with them for a democratic curriculum, (c) teaching skills, bridging gaps, and the affective component, (d), working with communities in-between social justice illiteracy, and (e) utilizing diverse forms of assessment.

Conclusion: We confirmed that there is no best way to teach social justice through PE and that TP must be individual to the teacher. In addition, this study highlighted methods and pedagogies by which teachers could engage in TP. Finally, the study's findings implied how teacher educators might go about working with both preservice and inservice PE teachers with the goal that they focus on facilitating social justice through their pedagogical approach.

KEYWORDS:

• Transformative pedagogy
• physical education
• social justice education
• sociocultural perspective

Acknowledgements

We want to thank ‘Harry’ for allowing us to learn with him in constructing this paper. Also, for his continued dedication to social justice work and physical education.

Notes on contributors

Shrehan Lynch is a Lecturer of Secondary Education at the University of East London where she is responsible for physical education teacher education including PGCE, School Direct, and Apprenticeship programmes.

Matthew Curtner-Smith is a Professor in the Kinesiology Department at the University of Alabama.

ORCID

Shrehan Lynch http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8939-3143

Matthew Curtner-Smith http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6455-5476