Norwegian youngsters’ perceptions of physical education: exploring the implications for mental health

ABSTRACT

Improving young people’s mental health has become a priority for policy-makers in Norway as elsewhere. Although the evidence is limited, physical activity has been identified as having a role in mental health promotion with school physical education (PE) typically being presented as a suitable setting. Few studies, however, have explored young people’s perceptions and experiences of PE and the possible consequences for their mental health – the departure point for this paper. We approach this issue sociologically by focusing on the processes through which PE is enacted. Qualitative data were generated by 31 focus groups involving 148 youngsters from the 10th grade (15–16-year-olds) in eight secondary schools in Norway. The overarching theme to emerge was that PE was valued by the students for what it was not as much as what it was. The appeal of PE often lay in being different and a break from ‘normal’ school lessons and, at the same time, an opportunity for informal social interaction and strengthening social bonds. Enjoyment of PE – even among those with limited sporting competence – was understood as giving rise to cathartic benefits and an antidote to their increasingly academic, routinized and performance-oriented school lives. However, processes relating to the organization, delivery and assessment of lessons meant that these benefits were sometimes compromised for some young people. We conclude that as far as the mental health of young people is concerned, the best justificatory defence for PE becomes physical recreation as a solution to (academic) schooling rather than PE as education.

KEYWORDS:

• Physical education
• mental health
• students
• Norway

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 All quotations presented in this paper have been translated from Norwegian into English and anonymized through the use of pseudonyms.

2 Capital letters following pseudonyms represent school identifiers.

3 A purging – akin to what Elias and Dunning (2008) described as ‘a controlled de-controlling of the emotions’ – providing psychological relief in a socially acceptable ‘civilized’ form through the open expression of strong emotions.

4 In Norway, the grading of students’ performances in school subjects begins officially when students enter lower secondary school, at ages 12 or 13. The grades youngsters are awarded during the latter years of lower secondary school determine whether they are able to obtain a place at the high school, or upper secondary school, of their choice. Economic developments and the widespread availability of opportunities to do so have made ‘staying on’ in upper secondary school normative in Norway.

5 The difference here is that youngsters are not compelled (although they may feel so) to engage with social media as they are with PE.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Research Council of Norway: [Grant Number 238212/F60].