140 research outputs found

    Tales from the playing field: black and minority ethnic students' experiences of physical education teacher education

    Get PDF
    This article presents findings from recent research exploring black and minority ethnic (BME) students’ experiences of Physical Education teacher education (PETE) in England (Flintoff, 2008). Despite policy initiatives to increase the ethnic diversity of teacher education cohorts, BME students are under-represented in PETE, making up just 2.94% of the 2007/8 national cohort, the year in which this research was conducted. Drawing on in-depth interviews and questionnaires with 25 BME students in PETE, the study sought to contribute to our limited knowledge and understanding of racial and ethnic difference in PE, and to show how ‘race,’ ethnicity and gender are interwoven in individuals’ embodied, everyday experiences of learning how to teach. In the article, two narratives in the form of fictional stories are used to present the findings. I suggest that narratives can be useful for engaging with the experiences of those previously silenced or ignored within Physical Education (PE); they are also designed to provoke an emotional as well as an intellectual response in the reader. Given that teacher education is a place where we should be engaging students, emotionally and politically, to think deeply about teaching, education and social justice and their place within these, I suggest that such stories of difference might have a useful place within a critical PETE pedagogy

    ‘I just treat them all the same, really’: Teachers, whiteness and (anti) racism in physical education

    Get PDF
    This paper explores physical educators’ perspectives on race and racism as a first step towards disrupting whiteness and supporting the development of antiracist practice. With close links to sport, a practice centrally implicated in the creation and maintenance of racialised bodies and hierarchies, Physical Education (PE) offers an important context for a study of whiteness and racism in education. Using collective biography we examine physical educators’ narrative stories for what they reveal about the operation of whiteness and racism in PE. Teachers draw on narratives from curricula texts which uphold and reinforce notions of the racialised other, thereby reasserting normative, universal white knowledge. Their pedagogy is underpinned by a colour blind approach where race is ‘not seen’, yet essentialist and cultural discourses of race are nevertheless deployed to position particular racialised and gendered bodies as ‘problems’ in PE. Engagement with antiracism is limited to professional rhetoric within pedagogical practice

    'Just open your eyes a bit more': The methodological challenges of researching black and minority ethnic students' experiences of physical education teacher education

    Get PDF
    In this paper we discuss some of the challenges of centralising 'race' and ethnicity in Physical Education (PE) research, through reflecting on the design and implementation of a study exploring Black and minority ethnic students' experiences of their teacher education. Our aim in the paper is to contribute to ongoing theoretical and methodological debates about intersectionality, and specifically about difference and power in the research process. As McCorkel and Myers notes, the 'researchers' backstage'-the assumptions, motivations, narratives and relations-that underpin any research are not always made visible and yet are highly significant in judging the quality and substance of the resulting project. As feminists, we argue that the invisibility of 'race' and ethnicity within Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE), and PE research more widely, is untenable; however, we also show how centralising 'race' and ethnicity raised significant methodological and epistemological questions, particularly given our position as White researchers and lecturers. In this paper, we reflect on a number of aspects of our research 'journey': the theoretical and methodological challenges of operationalising concepts of 'race' and ethnicity, the practical issues and dilemmas involved in recruiting participants for the study, the difficulties of 'talking race' personally and professionally and challenges of representing the experiences of 'others'. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

    Working through whiteness, race and (anti) racism in physical education teacher education

    Get PDF
    Background: The persistent gaps between a largely white profession and ethnically diverse school populations have brought renewed calls to support teachers' critical engagement with race. Programmes examining the effects of racism have had limited impact on practice, with student teachers responding with either denial, guilt or fear; they also contribute to a deficit view of racialised students in relation to an accepted white ‘norm’, and position white teachers ‘outside’ of race. Recent calls argue for a shift in focus towards an examination of the workings of the dominant culture through a critical engagement with whiteness, positioning white teachers within the processes of racialisation. Teacher educators' roles are central, and yet, while we routinely expect student teachers to reflect critically on issues of social justice, we have been less willing to engage in such work ourselves. This is particularly the case within physical education teacher education (PETE), an overwhelmingly white, embodied space, and where race and racism as professional issues are largely invisible. Purpose: This paper examines the operation of whiteness within PETE through a critical reflection on the three co-authors' careers and experiences working for social justice. The research questions were twofold: How are race, (anti) racism and whiteness constructed through everyday experiences of families, schooling and teacher education? How can collective biography be used to excavate discourses of race, racism and whiteness as the first step towards challenging them? In beginning the process of reflecting on what it means for us ‘to do own work’ in relation to (anti) racism, we examine some of the tensions and challenges for teacher educators in PE attempting to work to dismantle whiteness. Methodology: As co-authors, we engaged in collective biography work – a process in which we reflected upon, wrote about and shared our embodied experiences and memories about race, racism and whiteness as educators working for social justice. Using a critical whiteness lens, these narratives were examined for what they reveal about the collective practices and discourses about whiteness and (anti)racism within PETE. Results: The narratives reveal the ways in which whiteness operates within PETE through processes of naturalisation, ex-denomination and universalisation. We have been educated, and now work within, teacher education contexts where professional discourse about race at best focuses on understanding the racialised ‘other’, and at worse is invisible. By drawing on a ‘racialised other’, deficit discourse in our pedagogy, and by ignoring race in own research on inequalities in PETE, we have failed to disrupt universalised discourses of ‘white-as-norm’, or addressed our own privileged racialised positioning. Reflecting critically on our biographies and careers has been the first step in recognising how whiteness works in order that we can begin to work to disrupt it. Conclusion: The study highlights some of the challenges of addressing (anti)racism within PETE and argues that a focus on whiteness might offer a productive starting point. White teacher educators must critically examine their own role within these processes if they are to expect student teachers to engage seriously in doing the same

    White privilege, empathy and alterity in higher education : Teaching about race and racism in the sociology of PE and sport

    Get PDF
    In this chapter we provide a reflexive account on personal experiences teaching in HE in order to consider the extent to which our status as white HE practitioners reinforces and/or undermines white privilege in HE. As lecturers teaching within the discipline of sociology in physical education (PE) and sport contexts, we question whether our delivery of lectures on race and racism effectively challenges racialised discourses and encourages social action within our field. Despite the fact that the undergraduate programmes we work on incorporate lectures on race and ethnicity as a crucial part of the curriculum, these sessions have rarely been delivered by black and minority ethnic (BME) academics. We therefore consider whether our practice can provide a critical pedagogic voice, or if it simply provides a platform for white academics to unconsciously reinforce the institutional whiteness of HE. In particular, we reflect upon the possibility for white academics to empathise with the racialised social experiences of BME students in our cohorts, and the potential risk that our practice simply offers tokenistic discussion of race which reinforce the current forms of inequality and white privilege, whilst violating the alterity of our students

    Narratives from the road to social justice in PETE: teacher educator perspectives

    Get PDF
    Developing teacher education programmes founded upon principles of critical pedagogy and social justice has become increasingly difficult in the current neoliberal climate of higher education. In this article, we adopt a narrative approach to illuminate some of the dilemmas which advocates of education for social justice face and to reflect upon how pedagogy for inclusion in the field of physical education (PE) teacher education (PETE) is defined and practiced. As a professional group, teacher educators seem largely hesitant to expose themselves to the researcher's gaze, which is problematic if we expect preservice teachers to engage in messy, biographical reflexivity with regard to their own teaching practice. By engaging in self- and collective biographical story sharing about ‘our’ teacher educator struggles in England and Norway, we hope that the reader can identify ‘her/his’ struggles in the narratives about power and domination, and the spaces of opportunity in between

    Moving beyond physical education subject knowledge to develop knowledgeable teachers of the subject

    Get PDF
    All knowledge is socially constructed, including physical education teachers’ knowledge of their subject. It is acquired from other people either formally and deliberately (e.g. by being taught) or informally and casually (e.g. by interacting with physical education teachers or playing in a sports team). The social aspects of learning appear to be particularly strong in physical education. This has implications for the development of knowledge for teaching, with trainee teachers focusing on the development of subject, and particularly content, knowledge. Focusing on subject knowledge reinforces a traditional view of physical education as it is, not as it might be to meet the needs of young people today. It is argued that attention needs to be given not only to the knowledge, skills and competencies that trainee teachers ought to develop but also to the social aspects of their learning and development and the context in which they learn. Attention also needs to be given to how the ability to think critically can be developed so that trainee teachers can become reflective practitioners able to challenge and, where appropriate, change the teaching of the subject. Only by doing this can the particularly strong socialisation which shapes the values and beliefs of physical education teachers begin to be challenged. However, as the process of developing knowledgeable teachers is ongoing it is also necessary to look beyond teacher training to continuing professional development

    Moving beyond physical education subject knowledge to develop knowledgeable teachers of the subject

    Get PDF
    All knowledge is socially constructed, including physical education teachers’ knowledge of their subject. It is acquired from other people either formally and deliberately (e.g. by being taught) or informally and casually (e.g. by interacting with physical education teachers or playing in a sports team). The social aspects of learning appear to be particularly strong in physical education. This has implications for the development of knowledge for teaching, with trainee teachers focusing on the development of subject, and particularly content, knowledge. Focusing on subject knowledge reinforces a traditional view of physical education as it is, not as it might be to meet the needs of young people today. It is argued that attention needs to be given not only to the knowledge, skills and competencies that trainee teachers ought to develop but also to the social aspects of their learning and development and the context in which they learn. Attention also needs to be given to how the ability to think critically can be developed so that trainee teachers can become reflective practitioners able to challenge and, where appropriate, change the teaching of the subject. Only by doing this can the particularly strong socialisation which shapes the values and beliefs of physical education teachers begin to be challenged. However, as the process of developing knowledgeable teachers is ongoing it is also necessary to look beyond teacher training to continuing professional development
    • …
    corecore