The politics of pleasure: an ethnographic examination exploring the dominance of the multi-activity sport-based physical education model

Abstract

Kirk warns that physical education (PE) exists in a precarious situation as the dominance of the multi-activity sport-techniques model, and its associated problems, threatens the long-term educational survival of PE. Yet he also notes that although the model is problematic it is highly resistant to change. In this paper, we draw on the results of a year-long visual ethnography at an all-boys secondary school in Aotearoa New Zealand to examine the workings of power that legitimate this model of PE. Our findings illustrate that the school conflates PE and sport, to position PE as an appropriate masculine endeavour and valued source of enjoyment, as it articulates with good health, social development and competitiveness. We argue that student experiences of pleasure within PE—as co-constitutive with discourses of fitness, health, sport and masculinity—(re)produce the multi-activity sport-based form of PE as educationally appropriate and socioculturally relevant, thus making the model somewhat resistant to change. We stress that our study should not be read as a vindication of this PE model.

Keywords:

• Pleasure
• Politics
• Sport
• Physical education
• Masculinity
• Foucault

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Wayne Smith and Richard Tinning for their encouraging and constructive feedback on earlier drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The model of PE taught at Kea College was a ‘multi-activity’ model as the curriculum involved aquatics, gymnastics, fitness activities, sports and team-building and problem solving activities. Yet, more typically, the PE lesson revolved around a warm up (or fitness activities) and a competitive game of sport. The teaching of sport techniques did occur but was not the focus of the lesson. Accordingly, we refer to the Kea College model of PE as a multi-activity sport-based model.

2. Although we were initially surprised with this disregard, we should not have been as previous researchers have illustrated that curriculum guidelines may have little impact on how teacher’s actually teach and manage PE (e.g. Curtner-Smith, 1999; Curtner-Smith, Kerr, & Hencken, 1995). Moreover, teachers’ PE philosophies have also been found to be ‘neither shaken nor stirred by training’ (Evans, Davies, & Penney, 1996, p. 169).

3. We thank one of the anonymous reviewers of this paper who alerted us to the issue of limited discourses for understanding various pleasures.

4. The term ‘boys’ is used to refer to the male interviewees/subjects of this research in a colloquial rather than analytical sense. This descriptor was selected since the school was referred to as a ‘boys’ school and it was used by the participants in this study to refer both to themselves and others (i.e. ‘being one of the boys’ and ‘come on boys’).

5. The quotes drawn from the website and school prospective have been modified to ensure that the school cannot be identified.