Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

In Sweden, the primary school has an overall goal to protect and support students' health development. Physical Education has an important role in reaching this goal and since 1994 health has been included in its designation (Physical Education and Health). The curriculum for Swedish PE has since aimed at developing students' physical, psychological, and social abilities, and providing knowledge about the importance of a healthy lifestyle (Lundvall & Meckbach, 2008). This development is not unique to Sweden, health has over the last decades become a central content in PE in many countries, often in response to a perceived threat from an "obesity epidemic", but also because of a general shift towards a “holistic” discourse in PE during the1980s and 1990s (Lynch & Soukup, 2016). This holistic discourse advocates a broader health concept, and PE as a critical and constructive tool for reflecting on and learning from experiences of different physical activities (e g. Quennerstedt, 2019).

Research on PE teachers discourses of health and obesity suggest that they tend to see health as a matter of physical properties (e g.Vaera and Underwood, 2016; Gray et al., 2018). Body, size, and weight are often regarded as indicators of health. Thus, to be healthy is to be slim and fit, while unhealth is associated with fatness. PE teachers also tend to regard health as a matter of individual responsibility i.e., to have the character to do the “right” and “healthy” choices (e g. Garett and Wrench, 2012). While there are expressions of holistic perspectives of health they tend to be overlooked or subjected to a medical and pathogenetic approach. However, there are also expressions of ambivalence and counter discourses among PE teachers regarding how health is conceptualized (Welch & Wright, 2011;Gray et al., 2018).

In a previous study using the same data as we will present here, we studied how PE teachers were using discursive resources related to obesity in creating professional identities (Barker et al, 2020). While the participating teachers’ identities contained elements that are fundamentally unsympathetic to overweight individuals, we found that the PE teachers were more inclusive, sensitive, and critical regarding questions of body size, weight, and health than current PE literature on obesity suggest (Barker et al, 2020). This finding sparked our interest for investigating how these teachers more specifically made sense of the concept of health.

According to Flick et al. (2002:583), people hold everyday ideas of what health is. These ideas are constructed and transformed in everyday interactions, being influenced by concepts of health found in research, everyday knowledge, media, and public discourse. Professional groups, sharing educational background and professional socialization, tend to produce common social representations that have implications for how they understand and deal with different problems (Flick et al. 2002:583).

The aim of this study therefore to explore what conceptions and theories about health that are expressed in Swedish physical education teachers' descriptions of their teaching practice. We are also interested in how the teachers´ theories of health reflects healthism and obesity discourses, and to what extent they reflect a holistic understanding of health. The research questions guiding our study are 1) what theories of health are expressed in the teachers´ accounts of health? and 2) what practical consequences does the teachers´ theories of health have? Unlike most research on people's everyday perceptions of health we do not study personal experiences of illness, but the professional"everyday theories" that teachers use to meet the curriculum’s requirements for teaching physical education and health.

Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used

The data analyzed in this paper was collected in a project studying discourses of body, health, and weight among physical education teachers (see Barker et al. 2020 & 2021). The data was collected in Sweden in the fall 2018 and the spring 2019. The study involved PE-teachers in the grades 7-9 within compulsory schools in Sweden. In total, there were 24 participants (11 women and 13 men), aged 27 to 61, with a professional experience as a PE teacher between one and 30 years. Data was collected through six focus group interviews and six individual interviews. Health was one of several areas covered. The focus was on questions related to what it means to be a good student in PE, if there is a normal body in PE, if there is a healthy body in PE and what health is. We also asked about how the teachers “deal” with overweight students in the PE teaching and if they had been working with the body as a subject area in their teaching. Follow up questions opened for elaborations on specific topics. Sometimes these elaborations were initiated by the teachers, sometimes by the interviewer.

We conducted a thematic analysis of our data (Braun et al., 2016). The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Our strategy has been to identify, compare, contrast, and make sense themes in the teachers’ accounts. Conducted by the first author, the analysis started with iterative readings, followed by a process of initial coding to identify how the teachers accounted for health in relation to their professional practice as PE teachers. When initial codes were generated, the first author reiteratively organized the data into meaningful themes that reflected common ways of representing health among the teachers. Themes were checked for emerging patterns, variability, and consistency. We also checked for how the themes we found were related to and build on specific discourses.

Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings

Health was described and discussed in many ways by the teachers, but four dominant themes emerged in the material. The themes are distinct but related in different ways and different themes were often expressed in the same interview and by the same teacher.1) Health as a healthy attitude. This theme captures the recurring argument that health is a matter of attitude and that a healthy attitude is self-reinforcing and thus creates health.2) Health as functional ability. Being able to do things and to function in different everyday situations, was an often referred to understanding of health. It was also within this theme that health was expressed in terms of “social capacities”.3) Health as fitness. This is the theme that is most often explicitly expressed in the interviews. Being fit is an attribute that most teachers consider an important indicator of health. There were also recurring expressions of frustration over decreasing levels of fitness among students.4) Health as mental wellbeing. The teachers often relate to a holistic approach to health and talk about health in terms of “balance in life” and “to know yourself”, but also about being comfortable and satisfied with oneself. The teachers in our study present an understanding of health that in many ways replicates what has been identified in previous studies (e g., Flick et al. 2002). In terms of theories the teachers present different systems of thoughts about what health is and how it is determined. The common idea of health as a healthy attitude is an example of such a system that defines health as a fundamentally mental phenomenon. This "theorizing" is the most critical in terms of practical implications because it includes the idea that overweight and obese students can overcome health problems through a healthy attitude.

References

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