Re-thinking official educational organization towards friction-zones between divergent knowledges

In this article, I re-think official educational organization toward friction-zones. Thinking with a swimming event in physical education, and Deleuze’s notion of pure difference and its accompanying characteristics, non-linearity, decentralization, pluralistic knowledge, virtual and actual multiplicities, nomadic waiting, and open ends, I outline conditions for official educational organization in the encounter between divergent knowledges. The aim is to bring teachers and students closer to each other and paradoxically let up-coming concepts, meanings, and ideas act instead of silence everything that is not in line with predefined educational goals. It is to create common histories of learning and knowledge productions, and hence to produce common grounds in/by motion. Ultimately, it is about inclusive processes in/by motion. And, it is also a call for us all to pay attention and resist unintentional productions of exclusion, and thus all colonizing processes that includes superior knowledge.publishedVersio

Is it possible to think physical education forward and dismantle ourselves - in a quantum space?

This paper invites readers to an encounter of novel learning in the school subject physical education, and specifically swimming training. In collaboration with Deleuze’s immanent philosophy and creative observations in a case-assemblage, I speculate about productive experiences and educational events as movements toward physical activation, higher education, and the dissolution of health inequalities. Troubling situations of a standardized model of swimming training is combined with a quantum space where multiple divergent ideas, forces, and feelings interact and produce unforeseen learnings, values, and qualities. Frictions between segmented spaces and quantum spaces orient/reorient the student’s/swimming instructor’s/my/your? learning, values, and qualities. Finally, I emphasize quantum spaces as the heart of educational movement and the importance of creating open educational systems to perhaps think physical education forward.publishedVersio

Is it possible to think physical education forward and dismantle ourselves - in a quantum space?

This paper invites readers to an encounter of novel learning in the school subject physical education, and specifically swimming training. In collaboration with Deleuze’s immanent philosophy and creative observations in a case-assemblage, I speculate about productive experiences and educational events as movements toward physical activation, higher education, and the dissolution of health inequalities. Troubling situations of a standardized model of swimming training is combined with a quantum space where multiple divergent ideas, forces, and feelings interact and produce unforeseen learnings, values, and qualities. Frictions between segmented spaces and quantum spaces orient/reorient the student’s/swimming instructor’s/my/your? learning, values, and qualities. Finally, I emphasize quantum spaces as the heart of educational movement and the importance of creating open educational systems to perhaps think physical education forward

Making sense of health in PE : conceptions of health among Swedish physical education teachers

Purpose Over the last couple of decades, health has become a central part of the subject content in physical education (PE) curricula in many countries. As a result, issues of health have been foregrounded much more clearly in the teaching of PE. The aim of this study was to explore how Swedish PE teachers make sense of health in relation to their teaching practices. This was done through investigating conceptions and theories about health in the teachers' descriptions of their teaching practices. Design/methodology/approach The data analyzed in this paper were collected through focus group and individual interviews with PE teachers in the grades 7-9 within compulsory schools in Sweden. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings Four dominant themes were identified in the data: 1) Health as a healthy attitude, 2) Health as a functional ability, 3) Health as fitness, 4) Health as mental wellbeing. There is a clear impact from healthism and obesity discourses on the teachers' accounts of health, but there is also an impact from holistic views and approaches to health. The authors contend that teachers should be explicit in what they mean by health in relation to what they teach, how they teach and why they teach health in a certain way. Originality/value The knowledge produced by this study is crucial since teachers' assumptions regarding health affect the subject content (what), the pedagogies (how), as well as the reasons (why) they teach health and therefore what students learn regarding health

Physical education teachers and competing obesity discourses

Invited presentation</p

Physical Education Teachers and Competing Obesity Discourses : An Examination of Emerging Professional Identities

Aim: To provide insight into how physical education teachers use discursive resources related to obesity to create particular professional identities. Method: Data come from focus group and individual interviews with physical education teachers in Sweden. Discourse theory on teacher identities frame the analysis of the empirical material. Results: Data suggest that teachers in Sweden make use of six distinct but related discursive contributions to produce three professional identities: the caring practitioner, an identity concerned with ensuring all pupils irrespective of size participate in physical education; the activity luminary, an identity that focuses on inspiring pupils toward activity across the lifespan, and; the body rationalist, an identity concerned with challenging unrealistic media discourses and reassuring pupils that they have “normal” bodies. Discussion: The identities appear more inclusive, sensitive, and critical than current physical education literature on obesity suggests, however they also contain elements that are fundamentally unsympathetic to overweight individuals

Physical education teachers and competing obesity discourses

Invited presentation</p

Physical education teachers and competing obesity discourses

Invited presentation</p