The intersection of ethos and opportunity: an ethnography exploring the role of the ‘physical curriculum’ in cultivating physical capital in the elite educated student

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that the acquisition of bodily capital is not solely dependent on the individual’s innate physical capital, it also depends on how the body is managed. With opportunities to participate in sport differing significantly, social and economic issues play a key role in the acquisition of bodily capital. The quantities and forms of physical capital acquired by individuals are influenced by one’s social class position, with the dominant classes providing opportunities for their offspring to acquire an abundance of physical capital and placing an emphasis on the cultivation of this embodied capital from a very early age (Evans, J., & Davies, B. (2004). The embodiment of consciousness: Berstein, health and schooling. In J. Evans, B. Davies, & J. Wright (Eds.), Body, knowledge and control (pp. 207–218). London: Routledge). Employing a cultural structuralist theoretical model to explain social-class-related inequalities in physical education and sports provision in second-level schooling, this paper provides fresh insights into the class-specific physical education and sporting practices in elite schooling. In documenting the cultural distinctiveness of the physical education and sporting model in an Irish elite boarding school, insight is provided into the role of the physical curriculum in enabling elite educated students to acquire the most valued forms of physical capital.

KEYWORDS:

• Sport
• physical education
• elite education
• ethos
• ethnography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Cultural artefacts were in both traditional and digital forms, the inclusion of which was valuable for ‘corroborating or comparative data in relationship to the ethnographic record’, where they provided a contextual framework and enabled triangulation between the different sources of data (Murchison, 2010, p. 164).

2 Cricket, archery and polocrosse would be considered minority sports in Ireland.

3 Physical education is not valued in Ireland to the same extent that it is in other countries. Twenty-seven percent of pupils are reported as not participating in any extracurricular sport each week (Woods et al., 2010).