Neoliberalism and the future for a socio-educative physical education

Abstract

Background: This paper represents the Discussant's response to the variety of papers presented to the AIESEP-ICSEMIS symposium entitled: School Physical Education Curricula for Future Generations: Global Patterns? Global Lessons? Glasgow, Glasgow 19–24 July 2012.

Purpose: With reference to the symposium papers, this paper identifies some of the key features of neoliberalism and reflects on the very many challenges they present to Physical Education (PE) in schools and Initial Teacher Education in many countries across the globe.

Findings: The paper highlights the overbearing attention given in government policies in many countries to sport and performance-based curriculum and the reductive distortions it effects in teachers' and pupils' thinking and their pedagogical transactions.

Conclusions: Overgeneralised observations with regard to the practices described in the papers of this edition are unhelpful, while crystal ball gazing, questionable, even in our turbulent, socio-economic circumstances and proffering ‘one-size-fits-all solution’ to them across the globe, might be regarded as particular anathemas. Notwithstanding, this paper suggests that together the perspectives represented in this journal invite serious discussion as to the potential future, and future potential, of PE wherever it occurs. The final analyses call for the protection and celebration of Education in PE and pursuit of culturally sensitive socio-educative principles, eschewing neoliberalism's reductive ideals.

Keywords:

• physical education
• sport
• health
• neoliberalism
• socio-educative physical education

Acknowledgement

I am indebted to Emeritus Professor Brian Davies, Cardiff University, UK, for his invaluable comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

1. Richard Tinning, David Kirk and others have written about such matters (in their talk of ‘memes’ and of ‘futures’) better than I, asking what defines PE, gives it certain homogeneity globally and what its future shape might be.

2. Imagine a child, doing ‘PE’ in Philadelphia, or Los Angeles, in Melbourne, Auckland, Merthyr Tydfil or Seoul, or in Paris, Naples, Athens, Lisbon or Seville, or in Tripoli, Cairo, Nairobi, or Durban. Imagine! What is it about doing that something, variously/vicariously called ‘PE’ or PEH or Sport Education in each of those settings that will make that child feel and act very much ‘the same’ as any other child in any other setting; yet, equally, simultaneously, make them feel distinctively different (individually, physically and culturally), thereby, uniquely setting them apart? Schools, as we know, intentionally set out to make children feel ‘similar’ (‘we are all in this together boys and girls!’) while simultaneously setting them apart (I am better than thou); they socialise and they differentiate (skill) simultaneously, albeit not always in equal measure. Hence, schooling is never going to feel good or be wholly inclusive or beneficial to everyone – it is always and inevitably going to be just nice for some, some of the time, but never nice for all, all of the time.

3. As Green (2013) attests. A major reason why the PE community has felt compelled to ‘prove’ that PE can increase physical activity now and over the lifespan – and, as a consequence, has tended to be supportive of this claim, offering it up to policy-makers as a ‘PE effect’ – has been a desire to bolster and extend the place of PE and sport in schools. He also says, however,

it is a hostage to fortune for physical educationalists to attach themselves so vehemently to a claim that appears so untenable and may well, despite the substantial investment of resources into strategies such as School-Sport Partnerships in England, be shown to be, at worst, unachievable and, at best, all but impossible to prove. (16)

4. The term Rogernomics, a portmanteau of ‘Roger’ and ‘economics’, was coined by journalists at the New Zealand Listener by analogy with Reaganomics to describe the economic policies followed by Roger Douglas after his appointment in 1984 as Minister of Finance in the Fourth Labour Government. Rogernomics was characterised by market-led restructuring and deregulation and the control of inflation through tight monetary policy, accompanied by a floating exchange rate and reductions in the fiscal deficit.

5. Between 2003 and 2007, Nairn, Higgins and Sligo (2012) investigated what life was like for 93 young people coming to adulthood in New Zealand in the wake of Rogernomics. Participants were interviewed in their final year of high school and again 12–18 months later. In their book the lives of these young people are brought into sharp focus revealing the powerful effects of neoliberal ideas. Their stories show how neoliberalism obscures the structural basis of inequalities and insists that failure to achieve a straightforward transition from school to tertiary education to employment is the result of personal inadequacy. Institutions drawing on neoliberal ideas create additional barriers for the groups for whom inequality matters most – young Pasifika and Māori, and young working-class women and men.

6. See Sagamore Publishing LLC – 2011 issue of The Global Journal of Health and Physical Education Pedagogy (GJHPE). Specifically, building on the success of GoFPEP 2010, The Global Journal of Health and Physical Education Pedagogy seeks (among other things) to: promote dialogue and discussion on critical issues related to health and PE pedagogy, and PE teacher training; explore new and existing effective models of pedagogy for preparing health and PE teachers which promote accountability, builds community life, employs a greater use of reflection to improve practice and embeds learning in practice; examine the extension of health and PE-based school programmes into community life; promote the establishment of partnerships between the school, community, university, non-governmental organisations and commercial enterprises; and re-think the relationship between health and PE as a strategy for promoting lifelong active living (see Editorial comment http://js.sagamorepub.com/gjhpep/article/view/2656/2561).

7. Capitalism is rethinking its practices, if for no other reason than it cannot afford to reproduce those of the old. Capitalism is inherently colonial (and expansive), it has to reach out and go where often it is not wanted or does not belong, in the interest of increasing its profit margins. Its modern variants, however, are not insensitive to cultural diversity as long as there is profit in it and it does not infract its core principles and ideals. One hears talk of mutuality and empowerment, capitalism co-opting the language of educational liberalism to serve its interests.

8. That the social imaginary of neoliberalism has defined the voice of education including that of PE (and its many variants) in many countries, perhaps goes without saying, and we might well consider how it squares with the social imaginary that we either individually or as a profession collectively might invoke when we imagine the child in PE. What do we believe ‘the good child’, ‘the good teacher’, ‘the good parent’, the ‘good citizen’, ‘good PE’ and ‘good society’ to be? And why should our views on each or all of these things matter anyway above those of any other? In broaching these questions, this symposium has, indeed, addressed the powerful imaginary of neoliberalism, asking of it searching questions as to its propriety as the guiding, defining, ‘hegemonic’ and imaginary of our trade. In so doing, however, the papers also reach out to other imaginaries, those embryonic and undeveloped; they appeal to the as of ‘yet to be imagined’ voices and practices of PE as they search for a new common sense for education and PE, if not to replace, then, at least readjust and temper neoliberal ideals. Whether this new imaginary requires the rediscovery of old voices or those anew is matter for discussion. For what it is worth, for me, the voice required now more than ever is one called ‘(Physical) Education’ albeit shaped anew in respect of emerging sociocultural interests and attendant economic contingences. It would articulate pedagogies that are fundamentally selfless and social, inherently relational and grounded in social democratic principles and socio-educative ideals. It would operate under democratic control of communities and in the interests of society as a whole.