Physical education and health (PEH) have during the last decades been under debate in several countries. Reports claim that students learn sport but not health. Changes in society show new scenarios around health, wellbeing and illness among young people, and a growing uneven distribution of access to physical activity and knowledge in health. This leads to questions about students’ learning experiences from school PE.
The aim of the presentation is to, with the help of a nine year follow-up study, describe and analyze students’ attitudes to participation and learning in PE over the school years. The study consists of a population from randomly selected schools in Sweden, with students aged 9, 12, and 15, in the year of the baseline study, 2001. Follow-up studies were made three, six and nine years later. In 2010, 75% of the original population (1290) answered a revised, almost identical questionnaire.
The results show a significant difference in participation pattern between male and female students, where 18% of the female students in relation to 8% of the male students never or very seldom participates in PE in their older ages. From 15 to 18 years of age, one third of those who experience that they learned “nothing” remained in this category. Leaving school, 21% of the students at the age of 18 thought that they knew well how to train and be physically active by their own. 2 out of 10 regarded themselves as not having this knowledge. Over one third of the students were uncertain of relationships between health, life style and environment. One conclusion from the study is the need for a reworked model of how to become a learner in PEH. Conclusions and future challenges for PEH will be discussed.