Towards more equal power relations in physical education: power, resistance and social transformation

Abstract

We currently find ourselves living in precarious times of segregation with old and new inequities on the rise. One space where such segregation is (re)produced is school physical education (PE). Despite decades of critical research and curriculum reforms, PE is still typically delivered with an emphasis on skill learning associated with competitive sport. Relatedly, PE continues to make ‘friends and enemies’ which leads to inequitable educational outcomes and issues that can transcend beyond the PE classroom. So, what makes PE and its practices so resistant to change? Our interest as critical PE scholars lies in examining power: the nature of power, how power works, how unequal power relations are constructed and maintained but ultimately how PE can become a space for more equal power relations. That is, we believe that critical research on PE practice can make a difference. In this paper, we will discuss what makes PE seemingly resistant to change and how unequal power relations are (re)produced through the theoretical lens of Foucault. Through doing so we draw attention to the opportunities for resistance and social transformation which could shift and rearticulate prevailing power relations making PE a more inclusive and socially just educational space for all students.

Keywords:

• Physical education
• Foucault
• power
• equality
• social justice

Introduction

As teacher educators with a focus on physical education (PE) and health, we recognise the complex interplay of many physical and socio-cultural factors that influence the wellbeing of individuals and our society. In our ongoing work we are committed to enabling all people – regardless of age, gender, class and ethnicity – to experience the potential benefits of participating in health and movement related contexts. By providing opportunities for young people to learn in, through and about movement, we believe that PE is uniquely located to foster a population of both active and critical consumers of physical culture in our society (Goodyear, Kerner, and Quennerstedt 2019, Macdonald and Tinning 2003). However, as recently pointed out by Kirk (2020), we currently find ourselves living in precarious times of segregation with old and new inequities on the rise. One space where such segregation is (re)produced is PE. Despite decades of research and curriculum reforms PE continues to produce inequitable educational and learning outcomes that divide students into ‘friends and enemies’ (Evans 1986, Evans and Davies 2017). Our aim in this paper is to explore why PE and its practices appear widely resistant to change?

Our interest as critical PE scholars lies in understanding how power works to produce inequities but also to understand how power can be undermined or used for issues of social justice. That is, we believe that critical research on PE practice can make a difference (Pringle, Larsson, and Gerdin 2019). In this paper, we will discuss what makes PE seemingly resistant to change and how unequal power relations are (re)produced. Yet we also draw attention to the opportunities for social transformation that exists to shift and rearticulate prevailing power relations that can make PE a more inclusive and socially just educational space for all students. The specific aim of this paper is to draw on Foucauldian conceptualisations of power to address the following research questions: (i) why is PE resistant to change? and (ii) how can we bring about social transformations for social good in PE? We begin the paper with a brief overview of PE, power and resistance as informed by Foucauldian theorising, before providing examples of both the (re)production and resistance of unequal power relations in PE. To conclude the paper, we offer some final remarks and suggestions on working towards more equitable power relations in PE.

PE, power and resistance

PE as a subject area is a site of educational practice that constitutes and is constituted by, multiple and competing discourses, including discourses of sport, physical activity, health, bodies, gender and sexuality as examples. Recent decades have seen PE curricula (in some countries) move away from the predominance of a scientific/physiological examination and explanation of physical activity, health, and the body to a more socio-cultural and socially critical analysis and explanation. Socio-cultural and critical approaches to physical education, health, and the body are now foregrounded in PE curricula in countries such as Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, and Australia (Culpan and Bruce 2007, McCuaig, Quennerstedt, and Macdonald 2013) and require PE teachers to integrate a socially critical perspective into their pedagogy (Leahy, O’Flynn, and Wright 2013, Macdonald and Kirk 1999).

Despite these messages that call for the adoption of a socially critical pedagogy in PE, traditional biophysical notions of physical activity, bodies, and health are still being reproduced within this school subject (Azzarito et al. 2017). Relatedly, PE continues to privilege and reciprocally marginalise students on the basis of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, and social class (Landi 2019, Fitzpatrick 2013, Dagkas, Benn, and Jawad 2011, Engström 2008). For example, our own research (e.g. Gerdin 2017, Gerdin and Larsson 2018, Gerdin and Pringle 2017, Mooney and Gerdin 2018) has shown that boys’ experiences of PE are often based on narrow images of (hyper) masculinity, (hetero) sexuality, bodies, sports and biophysical dimensions of health. The (re)production of these norms work to produce various forms of exclusions and inequities. Sirna, Tinning, and Rossi (2010) suggest that many PE teachers tend to be both ignorant and insensitive to the (re)production of such social inequities. Consequently, teachers’ practices and students’ experiences of PE as enabled/constrained by prevalent discourses of gender, sport, fitness and health, remain a critical issue which calls for further examination.

An examination of the processes through which PE practices are produced and understood may give us the tools to intervene and construct a PE culture in which both teachers and students are less constrained by dominant discourses and unequal power relations that help (re)produce friends and enemies of PE. However, as pointed out by Pringle (2010), that is not to say that the role of PE is to create universal happiness [or] solve significant social issues’ (p. 130) but that we, as physical educators, need to recognise the workings of power relations to enable more students to experience movement as something meaningful, enjoyable and pleasurable.

In our work, we have both found Foucault’s theorising of the workings of discourse a useful way of analysing how historically and culturally located systems of power/knowledge relations construct subjects and their worlds. In this paper, we particularly wanted to use Foucault’s (1978, 1985, 1988, 1995, 2000) thinking around the workings of discourse and relations of power to both examine what makes PE and its practices so resistant to change. We now elaborate on how Foucault conceptualised power.

Deacon (2003, 276) claims that ‘Foucault sought to develop an analytics, as opposed to a theory of power, by not saying what power is but instead showing how it operates, concretely and historically, in the form of strategic relations aimed at governing subjects’. In contrast to, for instance, Bourdieu. Marx or Gramsci, Foucault focuses not on the questions ‘Who holds power and how do they use it?’, but rather on ‘How does power function in society?’

According to Foucault (1978) power is not a ‘thing’ that can be held but can be understood as a process or relationship within and between people and objects. Hence, power does not originate from a particular source but can be understood as universally present whenever people interact. Foucault accordingly argues that power operates in a capillary-like manner ‘forming a dense web that passes through apparatuses and institutions, without being exactly localized in them’ (Foucault 1978, 96). Foucault (1988, 11) reminds us that ‘when one speaks of ‘power’, people think immediately of a political structure, a government, a dominant social class, the master facing the slave and so on’. Yet he does not conceptualise power as a form of control from ‘above’ that limits what others can do. In contrast he stresses that when he refers to power it is always as a shorthand for ‘relationships of power’, he states:

I mean that in human relations, whatever they are–whether it be a question of communicating verbally … or a question of a love relationship, an institutional or economic relationship–power is always present: I mean the relationships in which one wishes to direct the behavior of another. These are the relationships that one can find at different levels, under different forms: these relationships of power are changeable relations, i.e. they can modify themselves, they are not given once and for all (Foucault 1988, 11–12).

In this light, power only exists when power relationships come into play. Power, therefore, is ‘exercised’ and not ‘possessed’. Hence, although governments, social institutions, laws and dominant groups are commonly assumed to hold power (Markula and Pringle 2006), Foucault claims that they have only become socially dominant due to the workings of various relationships of power. In this respect, these apparent forms of domination are representative of ‘the terminal forms (that) power takes’ (Foucault 1982, 92). Foucault was interested in tracing the workings of power over time (i.e. his genealogical research approach) to understand how current practices or institutions have come to be perceived as ‘powerful’.

In a similar vein, the concept of ‘empowerment’ that has been so popular in critical pedagogy is problematic because it assumes that someone has possession of power to ‘share’ in order to ‘empower’ the other (Webb and Macdonald 2007). For Foucault, power is neither negative nor positive, rather what is of interest is the ways in which specific (disciplinary) practices materialise relations of power.

In terms of PE practice this means that certain contents, bodies or identities are not inherently privileged or marginalized but it is the discursive practices of PE that in different ways make those contents, bodies or identities matter. That is, the power associated with certain sports (e.g. soccer or rugby), bodies (e.g. fit, or overweight) and identities (e.g. white or heterosexual) is due to the way teaching practices either privilege or marginalize these. So, one explanation why PE is so resistant to change can be related to PE teachers and teaching practices continuing to engender and embody traditional (narrow) contents, bodies and identities despite the intention of new curricula (Gerdin and Pringle 2017).

Foucault further examined the workings of power with the hope that others, who worked more closely in particular fields of study, could use his tools to devise strategies for change. He understood that the relationships of power are ‘changeable, reversible and unstable’ (Foucault 1988, 12). He premised this assertion on the belief that there ‘cannot be relationships of power unless the subjects are free’ (Foucault 1988, 12). More pointedly, he exclaimed (Foucault 1988, 12): ‘If one or the other were completely at the disposition of the other and became his (sic) thing, an object on which he can exercise an infinite and unlimited violence, there would be no relations of power’.

This, of course, is not the situation in PE. Teachers and students exist in a relationship of power, that although they may be unbalanced in favour of the teacher, students still have degrees of freedom and possibilities for resistance and disruption. Students can refuse to get changed for PE or not participate wholeheartedly, as many PE teachers know. More pointedly, how students react or do not react to teacher instructions, has a reciprocal influence on the teacher, who may feel pressure to change how or what they teach. Likewise, teachers have a degree of freedom to respond to curriculum and policy documents. In this way, the relationships of power that exist within PE allow for the possibilities for resistance and social transformation over time. Foucault understood that ‘[w]here there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power’ (Foucault 1978, 95).

When we think about power and how it is configured within different discourses, we also must think about resistance, and to trace its points and pathways (Foucault 1978). Foucault (1980) argues that we must have ‘an ascending analysis of power’ and encourages researchers to analyse the workings of power at the micro-levels of society. In this paper, we therefore draw from Foucault’s understandings of power at the micro-levels of the PE class, to think of how the relationships of power can be manipulated with the desire to create broader change. However, it is important to note that the examples of how to usurp the workings of power provided in this paper are mere suggestions not utopian guarantees.

Foucault, the working of power and opportunities for social transformation

By examining the workings of power in PE, we might better understand the different and competing logics by which such social practices and social relations are constructed in this space, which in turn opens the potential for new understandings that can lead to social change. In the following sections, we draw from the multiple ways that Foucault understood power to offer insights into why PE is so resistant to change but also how we might be able to instigate social transformation in PE. The key features of Foucault’s theorising of power included in our discussion below are: (1) Power as the producer of knowledge, (2) Disciplinary power aimed at the body, (3) Bio-power and governmentality, (4) Space as fundamental in any exercise of power, (5) Power as productive and producer of pleasure. In our discussion, we draw on our previous work and that of others to provide examples of how unequal power relations are both (re)produced and challenged in PE and the related spaces of (school) sport.

Power as the producer of knowledge – the construction of PE ‘truth(s)’

Foucault (1980) argues that power is deeply integrated and implicated within knowledge since the workings of power are understood as producing knowledge. The notion of knowledge as a product of power plays an important role in discourses since it is in the ways which discourses constrain what is considered as the ‘truth’ that knowledge and power are connected (Foucault 1978). Power thus operates in and through discourses as the other face of knowledge (Holstein and Gubrium 2005). In his work, Foucault maintains that power is an aspect of discourse in the sense that power can be regarded as a guideline (i.e. that which guides our actions). The concept of power should be seen as a relational concept and addresses relations between different actions, i.e. power relations (Foucault 2000). This implies that when individuals act, they do so in relation to previous acts. It is this process which, through systematic inclusion and exclusion, patterns and regularities are formed within certain practices – discourses.

The mutual implication of power and knowledge is important in terms of understanding the workings of power in PE since different discourses produce different forms of knowledge or ‘truths’ about PE. Truths that are currently produced by discourses surrounding PE may, for instance, proclaim PE as a solution to the obesity epidemic (e.g. Kirk 2006), assert that PE is about students being as (physically) active as possible (Fairclough and Stratton 2005), and that PE can help students achieve better in other (more important) subjects (Keeley and Fox 2009). One reason why PE is resistant to change is that certain knowledge or truths are being produced that lock PE practices into a rational or ‘normal’ agenda, yet this agenda is often in contrast to curriculum objectives and simultaneously serve to privilege certain knowledges and abilities. Both teachers and students can be seen to involved in the reaffirming of these truths (Gerdin 2016a).

In our earlier research we critically examined how school sport and PE can privilege the ‘sporty’ boys and promote a dominant form of masculinity that conversely marginalises alternative ways of performing masculinities and femininities (e.g. Gerdin 2014, Pringle 2003). Our prime concern was that schools were implicated in the production of problematic masculinities as linked with sexism, homophobia, poor health, bullying and, at times, violence. Yet we were also aware that schools can play an important role in transforming gendered performances via a variety of critical pedagogical practices.

One such ‘resistant’ teaching strategy that we have employed relates to Foucault’s (1980:85) notion that possibilities for social change ‘can occur through “a reactivation of local knowledges” that reveal marginalised discourses and allow opportunities for diverse ways of thinking to be opened up’ (Pringle 2008). In other words, teachers can present students with marginalised ways of knowing sport and gender that allow for the circulation of alternative discursive resources that can be drawn upon to create differing identities and ways of understanding sport.

Within New Zealand, given the popularity of rugby union and its articulations with dominating discourses of masculinity and nationalism, it is difficult for some males, who dislike the sport, to feel normal or even to raise public concerns about the sport. Indeed, the male critic of rugby risks being positioned as unpatriotic or as feminine given the workings of these dominating discourses. Pringle (2008), relatedly, presented secondary school students with a ‘collective story’ (cf., Richardson 1997) of men’s school experiences of rugby to illustrate the difficulties that some schoolboys faced given the dominance of this sport. The story documented how those boys felt compelled to play rugby while at school but did so with feelings of inadequacy and fear, and even moments of terror. The story further revealed how they became marginalised and, at times, mocked and bullied in a manner that shaped their identities adversely. One of the interviewees reflected:

Looking back now, it is quite clear, rugby sort of destroyed me. It made me feel like I wasn’t quite good enough. It made me feel soft. And I guess my initial strategy was to think: ‘Oh I don’t care, I don’t want to be like them’. But it did take its toll and it took many years before I could finally say to myself, ‘Hey, I am a good guy’ (Pringle 2008, 227).

The collective story promoted lively discussion amongst the students, and for some it engendered an empathetic response that allowed them to understand rugby’s position of dominance in a critical manner. The discussion also provided a legitimate context within which the students could publicly voice, possibly for the first time, some of their concerns related to rugby’s position of dominance and stereotypical ways of performing masculinities without the fear of being ridiculed. In this light, the collective story allowed for the circulation of marginalised discourses of rugby and masculinity that offered possibilities for thinking differently. It was concluded that this critical Foucauldian strategy could play a modest role in assisting social transformation.

More recently, Gerdin (2017) drew on Foucault’s (1985) ‘modes of subjectivation’ to demonstrate boys’ problematisation of dominant discourses of gender and power relations in PE. The paper focused on the stories of select individual boys and groups of boys who were particularly engaged in questioning, challenging and problematising aspects of their own masculine identities in PE and who expressed a desire to perform gender or construct masculine identities in more responsible, inclusive and ethical ways. One of the boys in this study said:

I really don’t like how we as rugby players are sometimes seen as just rough and tough, I mean don’t get me wrong I like playing rugby but sometimes I wish we would not all be grouped into the same category. And I don’t think it is fair how some of us think that other sports are ‘girls’ sports’ or for ‘poofters’. It is not like you are less of a man just because you don’t play rugby (Gerdin 2017, 900).

The paper further showed how the boys both critiqued and influenced the gendered practices of PE through reflecting on the various moral and ethical issues associated with these practices. Their critical reflection, active problematisation and influence on gendered discourses in PE can be seen as examples of how a socially critical and transformative curriculum in PE might function in practice (Gerdin 2017).

Disciplinary power aimed at the body – how bodies come to ‘matter’

According to Foucault (1995) it is in our institutions such as prisons and schools, which he calls ‘disciplines’ or ‘disciplinary blocks’, that various discourses and power/knowledge relations are fortified. Using his concept of power as relational, presupposing that there are multiple forms of power, Foucault (1995, 94) is particularly interested in what he calls ‘disciplinary power’, by which he refers to the control, judgement, surveillance and normalisation of subjects in such a way that they were ‘destined to a certain mode of living or dying’. Foucault (1995) claims that the body is a crucial site of disciplinary, normalising practices and the workings of power. He further argues that disciplinary power is a form of power which focuses on the control and discipline of bodies and that is mainly achieved ‘by means of surveillance’ (Foucault 1995, 104). Hence, disciplinary power defines:

[H]ow one may have a hold over others’ bodies, not only so that they may do what one wishes, but so that they may operate as one wishes, with the techniques, the speed and the efficiency that one determines. Thus, discipline produces subjected and practised bodies, ‘docile’ bodies (Foucault 1995, 138).

Foucault’s analysis of the human body is an attempt to show that the ‘body’ is a contingent effect of power rather than a given fact of nature and ‘conceives the body as “the inscribed surface of events” and as “totally imprinted by history”’ (Shilling 2012, 203).

Drawing from Foucault’s notion of disciplinary power we suggest that a second reason why PE is so resistant to change is that PE is widely viewed favourably as a disciplinary institution that facilitates the controlled production of suitably ‘healthy’ bodies. Yet this mainstream belief ignores the reality that PE produces a hierarchy of bodies, such as Azzarito’s (2009) claim that PE reinforces the value of ‘pretty, active and ideally white’ bodies. Or that PE works to belittle fat bodies (Powell and Fitzpatrick 2015). To bring about change in PE, accordingly, we suggest that an awareness of how disciplinary practices make bodies ‘matter’ in different and hierarchical ways is needed (Gerdin and Larsson 2018). Our following example draws from coaching literature to reveal how bodies are disciplined via sport.

School sport coaching techniques have tended to mirror the more traditional way in which adult athletes have been coached, such as via the use of repetitive drills, fitness programmes, and a focus on winning with awards and recognition for the best student athletes. These coaching techniques involve disciplinary technologies where student’s bodies are controlled via analysis of movement, fitness testing, monitoring of performance, the collection of statistics, hierarchical observation and normalising judgments with associated punishments and incentives. Critical examination of these disciplinary technologies reveals the production of docile and normalised athletes (e.g. Denison and Avner 2011, Denison and Mills 2014, Gearity and Mills 2012) and an associated array of problematic consequences (Barker-Ruchti and Tinning 2010, Lang 2010, McMahon, Penney, and Dinan-Thompson 2012). These consequences relate to issues such as ‘retirement’ at young ages (sport drop out), psychological burn out, chronic pain, poor dietary practices, body-image problems and even cases of depression (e.g. Curry 1993, Hughes and Coakley 1991, McMahon, Penney, and Dinan-Thompson 2012). Such problems clearly run counter to the broader goal of school sport and PE within which many PE teachers desire for their students to develop a life-long love of healthy movement. Recognition of these problems and their linkages to disciplinary technologies pose a dilemma for schools. To be blunt, we are highly critical of the unfounded and simplistic belief that disciplinary coaching/teaching practices will result in the production of ‘healthy’ bodies. We accordingly ask: how can school sport be coached, and PE taught, in a manner that avoids the production of docile athletic bodies?

In an earlier paper, with Hamish Crocket (cf., Gerdin, Pringle, et al. 2019) we provided a narrative-of-self to reveal how Göran Gerdin, as an elite tennis coach, drew from Foucault’s ‘technologies of the self’ to coach more ethically. The narrative revealed how Göran experienced the tragedy of youth player suicide and how he problematized the insidious influence of technologies of dominance on athletic subjectivities. To counter this problem, Göran developed an athlete centred approach and deliberately shifted away from an authoritarian style. He also avoided the use of monotonous drills and no longer prioritised the production of ‘winners on the tennis courts’ but was inspired to promote the development of healthy, well-rounded and resilient youth. His broader ‘telos’ was to produce players who enjoyed playing the game and who were more broadly involved in the life of the club.

In recognising the importance of differing contexts in the process of making these coaching changes, Gerdin, Pringle, et al. (2019, 14) concluded that coaching practices were neither liberating nor oppressive: yet, it was the coaches’ awareness of their ‘ability to exercise power in negotiating dominant discourses that makes transformation possible’. Accordingly, ‘the first step towards an effective and ethical coaching practice […] lies in reaffirming the need for coaches to reflect on and problematize their practices’ (Gerdin, Pringle, et al. 2019, 14–15). A question of importance remains: how can coaches and teachers develop the skills and abilities to critically reflect on the workings of disciplinary power? In this respect, we advocate for a student-centred style of teaching PE, as underpinned by an ethics of care for the students (cf., Mordal Moen et al. 2020) and a focus on shared social responsibility (cf., Smith et al. 2021). We are optimistic that these approaches to teaching PE would work towards more equitable relations of power.

Bio-power and governmentality – the production of ‘(un)desirable’ bodies and identities

In his theorising of power, Foucault introduced the concept of ‘bio-power’ in order to highlight that disciplinary power is not only about producing individuals and docile bodies. It is also concerned with the management of the population. If disciplinary power is about training the actions of bodies, bio-power is about managing the births, deaths, reproduction, and illnesses of a large-scale number of these bodies, that is, the management of the ‘population’. Rose (1999, 22) writes that ‘discipline is constitutively linked to new ways of thinking about the tasks of political rule in terms of the government of the conduct of the population […] Bio-politics and the biologized state…are strategies which recognize and act upon the positivity of the domains to be governed’.

Disciplinary power is used to create docile and productive bodies, but this is not solely for individual gain. Rather, the individual becomes responsible for the creation of their body in socially sanctioned ways to contribute to the health of the population (Markula and Pringle 2006; McDermott 2007; Rose 1999). Foucault’s (1991) consideration of bio-power led to his conceptualisation of governmentality:

Government has as its purpose not the act of government itself, but the welfare of the population, the improvement of its condition, the increase of its wealth, longevity, health, etc…Interest at the level of consciousness of each individual who goes to make up the population, and interest considered as the interest of the population regardless of what the particular interests and aspirations may be of the individuals who compose it, this is the new target and the fundamental instrument of the government of population (Foucault 1991, 100).

McDermott (2007, 306) elaborates further that governmentality ‘represents a rationality and strategy of governing that emerged in the West in the eighteenth century, the focus of which is to manage populations in such a way that simultaneously individualizes and totalizes, in terms of each and all’. Governmentality instils in people that they are responsible for their own health by promoting it as an individual responsibility that contributes to the greater good of the society.

The history of PE has revolved around the physical training (PT) of bodies. Within New Zealand, PE was commonly referred to as PT until the late 1940s. This legacy of training bodies remains today, with many physical educators still espousing that their aim in teaching is to produce healthy and active subjects. PE can, accordingly, be regarded as a prime form of governmentality. Yet given the relatively high rates of sedentary adults and alleged levels of obesity, some may suggest that this form of governmentality appears easy to resist. Such a claim, however, neglects how this governmental technology works in insidious ways.

The dominant discourses of obesity and exercise that circulate within PE promote understandings that fit and thin bodies are healthy and good. A reverse discourse simultaneously circulates that promotes belief that inactive and overweight bodies are unhealthy, undisciplined and can even be considered as moral failures (Eller 2014, LeBesco 2010). These bodily discourses are clearly not confined to PE but filter throughout society in a capillary-like manner within social media, advertising, weight loss clinics, fitness centers, newspapers, medical centres and casual conversations. These discourses cannot be ignored and induce a range of reactions. Harman and Burrows (2019, 187) with specific reference to women assert ‘that even those who are not regarded as “fat” experience the stigma of feeling fat, the fear of becoming fat, and the repulsion of others’ fatter bodies’. They argue that the omnipresent imperative to be thin and active promotes various confessional practices and self-monitoring and, for many, feelings of guilt and even self-loathing. These negative feelings damage lives and wellbeing. It is in this insidious manner that this form of bio-power is difficult to resist. Even when one is critically aware that obesity science has flaws (Gard and Wright 2005) and that the socially constructed body norms, particularly for females, are damaging (Harman and Burrows 2019), many find it difficult to resist the desire to be thin and the associated self-monitoring and feelings of guilt.

Given the harms associated with exercise-induced guilt, Pringle and Powell (2016) recommended Foucault’s strategy of the resurrection of marginalized knowledges as a tactic to disrupt weight bias in schools. The marginalized knowledges as evidenced in various biographical narratives, twitter accounts and movie clips aim to reveal how fat discourses can stigmatise, harm individuals, and produce ill health. This disruptive knowledge not only produces a critical awareness about the consequences of how discourses of fat circulate and its consequences but, in some cases, an empathy towards those stigmatised and discriminated against by those discourses.

A third and somewhat complex reason why PE is resistant to change is, relatedly, that broader forms of governmentality (e.g. government policies concerning healthy bodies that are beyond the scope of the actual PE curriculum) permeate and influence the everyday rational behind and practices of PE: where what is seen as the common good overrides other educational and learning foci in this subject. The subject, as such, has long been viewed as important to produce healthy bodies. This is despite any strong evidence that PE has any long-term influence on the health of individuals (Bailey et al. 2009). In this manner, PE has been naively viewed as a vehicle for accomplishing broader government health goals without questioning whether this is a reasonable expectation. One consequence of this view is that the subject and its learning has been viewed as primarily valuable in only instrumental ways (Hawkins 2008, Morgan 2006). For example, some view PE beneficial as it helps students focus better on their academic subjects or because it can allegedly combat the ‘obesity epidemic’. PE, accordingly, is not viewed as valuable in its own right. Morgan (2006, 102) argued that ‘[i]nstrumental justifications of physical education programs not only relegate them to second class status and importance but also open them to the objection that there might well be better ways to accomplish the ends they supposedly help to realize’.

We concur with Morgan and suggest that the belief that PE is not an autotelic subject underpins why it is typically valued less than the so-called academic subjects and why educational authorities appear to have less concern about what is taught in PE. This lack of concern, we argue, is a contributing factor that makes PE resistant to change. Correspondingly, we suggest that for PE to change, PE leaders need to recognise and promote what PE’s unique and valuable educational contribution can be (Pringle 2010). This process may involve the subject distancing itself from broader forms of governmentality that focus on the production of healthy bodies. Yet we also recognize, as Tinning (2000, 10) suggested, that it can be a ‘dangerous game’ to attempt to define the purposes of PE and that the history of PE is one of ongoing debates about what its prime goals should be.

Space as fundamental in any exercise of power – the discursive nature of spaces

Viewing power as universally present, Foucault (1973, 177) claims that analysing knowledge in spatial terms makes it possible to ‘capture the process by which knowledge functions as a form of power’. In this way, Foucault links the spatial with his rejection of abstract theories of power. Foucault (1982, 20) argues that ‘space is fundamental in any exercise of power’ and claimed that ‘a whole history remains to be written of spaces – which would at the same time be a history of powers (Foucault 1980, 49). According to Foucault:

The great obsession of the 19th century was…history…with its themes of development and suspension, of crisis and cycle…with its great preponderance of dead men…The present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space…We are at a moment…when our experience of the world is less that of a long life development through time, than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein (Foucault and Miskowiec 1986, 22).

Foucault (1995) argues that to enable effective disciplinary practices, the spaces accommodating such practices were needed. In this sense, disciplinary practices are aimed at turning individuals into docile, useful and productive bodies by distribution of individuals in space (Foucault 1995). Educational discourses and relations of power are in this way inscribed in the spaces of schooling as the ‘concretisations of power’, evidenced by the majority of secondary schools in western countries being similarly designed and constructed (Markus 1993).

Space as fundamental in any exercise of power draws attention to how another reason why PE is resistant to change is due to the dominant design and use of PE spaces such as the way gymnasia and sports fields are constructed. For instance, most secondary schools in New Zealand have one or more rugby fields, with the best field often exclusively reserved for the school’s top rugby team, the ‘First XV’. What are notably missing are spaces for other recreational activities such as skateboarding, BMXing, dance and yoga. In addition, the design and provision of schooling and PE as sporting spaces, based on a form of ‘healthism’ (Crawford 1980), which privileges individualistic notions of health and the assumption that sport = fitness = health (Gerdin and Ovens 2016). Without a rethink in what and how spaces in PE are used there is not likely to be much change in practices since the spaces in themselves privilege and marginalize certain contents, bodies and identities (Gerdin 2016b).

In conceptualising space as a form of power, we direct our attention to the architecture of the changing rooms in the physical education of boys (we acknowledge there are many similar issues with respect to the physical education of girls). Atkinson and Kehler (2010, 73) draw our attention to how PE classes can be understood as a site of gendering practices ‘through which boys learn, embrace and embody, or are damaged by particular codes of dominant masculinity’. They raise specific concern about the locker room, a space typically free from the gaze of the teacher. Within these spaces, they note, that boys are still subject to a form of male surveillance, a form they call ‘jock masculinity policing’ (Atkinson and Kehler 2010, 73), that leads to the victimisation of some boys and the related dislike of PE. John (aged 15), for example, reports on the bullying he encountered in the PE locker room:

I have not brought my gym uniform, my gym clothes to school on so many occasions … That was a conscious choice on my part, because I did not want to participate, because I brought [gym clothes] a few times but I would wear it underneath my other clothes, and I would just take those off in the change room and have my gym uniform on, because I was uncomfortable with my body, and I was afraid of what other kids would say to me. In Grade Eight, I got made fun of a lot. When I would take my shirt off to change into my other shirt, and people would scream and look away and stuff just to make fun of me. Sometimes the other guys might slap me around a bit and call me a little bitch. So, I had had enough of that, and I decided that I was either not going to bring my uniform or just not go at all … and no, nobody really ever asked me why or like wanted to do anything about it. I thought the teacher might ask me why, but he never did. No one seemed to care (cited in Kehler and Atkinson 2013, 124).

Atkinson and Kehler (2010) draw from Foucault to refer to the locker room space as a heterotopia or a liminal space outside of the traditional workings of power: a space where teachers exercise less power, naked or near-naked bodies are on display, and other more harmful relationships of power can dominate. Boys with bodies that diverge from the ‘normal’– for example, those deemed small, overweight or feminine – can become subject to the punishments of normalising judgement (i.e. ridicule) that do harm to notions of self and decrease desire for participation in PE. Reinstating the dominance of the teacher’s gaze in this heterotopic space would not alleviate, but could even exacerbate, the sense of normalising judgment.

To help remove these harmful relations of power we suggest that the architecture of locker rooms could be modified with concern given for the provision of (gender-neutral) private spaces for changing and showering (cf., Berg and Kokkonen 2021). Such spatial changes could reduce normalising judgements and associated bullying. We acknowledge that architectural changes can be costly and that such changes would not eliminate the harms of normalising judgements. Yet we contend that physical educators should advocate for such changes given that the power of existing spatial designs counters the teaching goal to encourage all students to participate in and value movement.

Power as productive and producer of pleasure – the constitution of ‘movement pleasures’

Foucault (1995) stressed that disciplinary power not only leads to docile but also useful and productive bodies. Foucault (1980, 119) argues that power should not necessarily be seen as negative, but above all as productive: ‘it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms of knowledge, produces discourse’. Disciplinary power not only renders subjects docile, but it also enhances their capacities; it is productive. It is in this sense Foucault (1980, 34) suggests that ‘power is not simply oppressive; we are caught in its networks precisely because some aspects of the exercise and experience of power are profoundly pleasurable’. However, since pleasure is integral to power it can be dangerous (Foucault 1985) because power – both the exercise of power and the subjection to dominating social norms – might induce pleasure (Foucault 1980). In his study of the history of sexuality Foucault’s (1978) attempted to understand the social construction of pleasure in relation to the workings of discourse and power, or, as he stated:

[t]o locate the forms of power, the channels it takes, and the discourses it permeates in order to reach the most tenuous and individual modes of behavior, the paths that give it access to the rare or scarcely perceivable forms of desire, how it penetrates and controls everyday pleasure (Foucault 1978:11).

That is, individuals make sense of pleasures in relation to the discourses circulating within a specific context (Foucault 1978). Different systems of thought and mechanisms of power in different contexts, therefore, shape how humans experience, understand, manage and use pleasure.

Despite the advent of progressive PE curriculums in Australia and New Zealand and proliferation of academic critiques (e.g. Kirk 2010, Locke 1992, Penney and Chandler 2000) concerning the ‘traditional’ approach to teaching PE (e.g. lessons that begin with a warm-up followed by skill learning and concluded with a game of sport), the dominance of the multi-activity, sport-technique model remains stubbornly resistant to change. To understand why this model of teaching has remained dominant, despite it being referred to as a ‘programmatic lemon’ (Locke 1992, 363), we examined the workings of power that constituted its ongoing popularity via an ethnographic examination of PE teaching within a boys’ secondary school (cf., Gerdin and Pringle 2017).

Foucault was skeptical of the notion that power worked in a coercive or repressive manner and forced people to perform tasks that they did not want to. In contrast, he understood that power was productive, as the workings of power produced the societies we live in, the rules and politics that circulate, and the social performances and subjectivities within. Although he did not examine in detail the connections between pleasure and power, he suggested that power was productive as people desired to follow the workings of discourse/power as it provided a degree of pleasure for them. For example, dominant discourses of masculinity may suggest that ‘normal’ men should appear heterosexual, non-emotional and display a degree of toughness, conversely, many men like to perform such traits. In this manner, the workings of power are productive as men gain a degree of pleasure from performing masculinity.

Through reflecting on the idea that the workings of power and pleasure are connected, we examined the workings of power in a PE class to understand why the multi-activity, sport-technique model remained dominant. Our results revealed numerous connections between the dominance of this model, the broader physical culture and pleasure. Dominant discourses of sport and masculinity were prevalent in everything from the participating school’s official policies which stated that ‘we believe in the importance of sport in the all-round development of healthy young men, considering it to be as important for their social development as classroom activities are for their academic progress’ and ‘although the importance of competition is valued, we are more interested in promoting enjoyment of sport for its own sake’ (Gerdin and Pringle 2017, 199) to the PE teacher’s focus on the students gaining a ‘love of sport’ and the students’ view that sport ‘builds character’ (Gerdin and Pringle 2017, 200). We argued that most of the boys (but not all) gained pleasure in PE via enjoying the embodied physicality of the activities, the sense of competition, the opportunities to be in teams with friends and the excitement of playing sport. We concluded ‘that these pleasures as co-constitutive of discourses of fitness, health, sport and masculinity (re)produce the multi-activity sport-based form of PE as both desirable, productive and socio-culturally relevant’ (Gerdin and Pringle 2017, 209). These diverse pleasures and discursive links worked as the glue that locked ‘the multi-activity, sport-based form into its position of dominance within PE’ (Gerdin and Pringle 2017, 209). We accordingly recognized that attempts to challenge this pedagogical dominance would likely be unsuccessful unless critical researchers considered the connections between pleasure and the workings of power in PE: pleasure, as such, can be understood as hard to resist.

So, yet another reason why PE is resistant to change is that dominant understandings of the social and peer-group status attained by ‘sporty’ or ‘fit’ boys and girls (and even the teachers themselves) might represent experiences/outcomes that are desirable for many students and teachers both in PE class but also the broader school culture. A challenge of these practices either by them or their PE teachers risk missing out on attaining these high-status identities. PE teachers therefore need to be aware that they are not only enabling students’ experiences of pleasures through, for instance, sport and fitness, but that they are also influential in shaping their understandings about the pleasures of these movement experiences. Drawing on Foucault’s idea that pleasure has no passport, Allen and Carmody (2012) argue that teachers in this way can be seen as ‘border protection officers’ who monitor and regulate the pleasures students derive from certain activities and ways of constructing their identities. Challenging the way the pleasures of PE are enabled and understood is crucial to bringing about change in PE (Gerdin and Pringle 2017).

Conclusions

In this paper, we have aimed to illustrate how a theoretical understanding of power is important for understanding why PE appears resistant to change but also in providing opportunities for social transformation. In particular we have drawn attention to how the effect of power in PE practice impacts on the construction of PE ‘truth(s)’, how bodies comes to ‘matter’, the production of ‘(un)desirable’ bodies and identities, the discursive nature of spaces and the constitution of ‘movement pleasures’. An awareness of how power plays out in these different but related ways in PE practice might help teachers and researchers alike better understand and ultimately transform inequitable power relations.

In our case we have found Foucault’s materialist approach for understanding power particularly useful. Yet given his understandings of the complex links between relations of power, the workings of discourse, pleasure, bodies, subjectivities and material objects (e.g. the design of buildings), this does not mean that simple solutions and strategies of resistance can be enacted with any degree of certainty. Indeed, Foucault’s theoretical tools are helpful for understanding the workings of power, yet these understandings also reveal the complexity of transforming subjectivities and existing relations of power. Such awareness does not mean that we should not attempt strategies of resistance – indeed Foucault hoped that his tools would be used for strategies of social change – but that we should understand that there are no simple solutions for many of the social problems we face.

In this vein, Tinning (2002) argued for the use of a ‘modest pedagogy’ in PE to recognise the difficulty in enacting critical pedagogies in a neoliberal world (Gerdin, Pringle, et al. 2019). However, in taking heed of Foucault’s (1980) focus on the importance of small local resistances to unequal power relations as a way of bringing about social change, we are both encouraged and affirmed in our view that PE teachers can make a difference when it comes to contributing to more equitable outcomes in the classroom and beyond.

To conclude, we suggest that Foucault’s theoretical framework of understanding how power works can provide PE teachers, educators and researchers with a critical pedagogical tool to engage students in socio-critical analyses of their participation in, through and about movement, as promoted by the current HPE curriculum in New Zealand (along with other countries such as Australia and Sweden). We believe that the use of such critical pedagogical approaches might have the potential to improve educative outcomes in PE and serve the public good by enabling more boys and girls to experience the excitement of participating in a range of health and movement related contexts and become active and critical consumers of physical culture in our society.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.