ABSTRACT

Background: People often expect physical education teachers to look fit and athletic, to do lots of physical activity, and to eat well. While ample research exists on physical education teachers’ bodies, relatively few scholars have investigated how physical educators relate corporeal expectations to broader ideas about subject content, pedagogy, and the purposes of the school subject.

Aim: The specific aim of the paper is to identify the assumptions about content, pedagogy, and educational purposes that teachers make when they talk about a perceived need for physical educators to look fit and athletic.

Method: To frame our work theoretically, we draw from a Swedish didaktik of physical education tradition and employ Bakhtin’s concept of speech genres, and Wertsch’s concept of privileging. Our empirical material consists of transcripts generated from 6 focus group and 6 individual interviews (24 teachers in total, average age of 40 years, average teaching experience 11 years).

Findings: Data suggest that when teachers use an ‘athletic-looking teacher as healthy role model’ speech genre, they tend to privilege: (1) a particular version of health as subject content that involves not being too overweight and maintaining physical functionality in sports. This content is based on biomedical conceptions of health which foreground exercise, eating and weight, and a pathogenic reduction of risk; (2) particular pedagogies in PE that put the teacher at the centre of the pedagogical situation, and; (3) a certain educational purpose in PE, which is to educate citizens for healthy lives through participation in sport. With respect to this purpose, increasing body weight enters the genre as a potential obstacle for educational success.

Discussion: The findings raise questions concerning appropriate curricular content and its relation to teacher identities. They suggest that learning possibilities may be missed when certain content, pedagogies, and outcomes are privileged. The findings also indicate how wider voices are implicated in the speech genre.

Conclusion: The paper is concluded with reflections on the possibility for change regarding expectations of physical education teachers’ bodies and pedagogies.

摘要

背景：人们通常期望体育老师看起来健康、运动、做大量的体育活动并且吃得好。虽然对体育教师的身体进行了大量研究，但相对较少的学者调查了体育教师如何将身体期望与更广泛的学科内容、教学法和学校学科目的联系起来。

目的：本文的具体目的是确定教师在谈论体育教育者看起来健康和运动的感知需求时所做的内容、教学法和教育目的的假设。

方法：为了从理论上构建我们的工作，我们借鉴了瑞典的体育教育传统，并采用了巴赫金的演讲类型概念和 Wertsch 的特权概念。我们的实证材料包括来自 6 个焦点小组和 6 个个人访谈（总共 24 名教师，平均年龄 40 岁，平均教学经验 11 年）的成绩单。

调查结果：数据表明，当教师使用“运动型教师作为健康榜样”的演讲类型时，他们倾向于优先考虑：(1) 特定版本的健康作为主题内容，涉及不过重和保持运动中的身体机能. 该内容基于健康的生物医学概念，强调锻炼、饮食和体重，以及降低致病风险；(2) 将教师置于教学情境中心的特定体育教学法，以及；(3)体育有一定的教育目的，即通过体育运动教育公民健康生活。就此目的而言，增加体重成为教育成功的潜在障碍。

讨论：调查结果提出了关于适当的课程内容及其与教师身份的关系的问题。他们认为，当某些内容、教学法和结果受到重视时，可能会错过学习机会。调查结果还表明，更广泛的声音与语音类型有关。

结论：本文总结了对体育教师的身体和教学法的期望发生变化的可能性的思考。