Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

The interest in yoga, mindfulness or similar yoga-based practices (YBP) has grown exponentially in the western world, also within education, including physical education (PE). Although some studies have been conducted on YBP in PE, yoga has not yet been researched in the framework of physical education teacher education (PETE). Using a regional lifeworld approach, the purpose of this article is to investigate how PETE students experience their participation in a YBP didactics unit when it was included in the PETE programme. What thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations were evoked in the students as they explored YBP and their prospects for teaching it themselves? The project involved 13 students during their fifth year in one of Sweden's PETE programmes. Questionnaires and diaries were used as information sources. Ten of the 13 students were also interviewed. In the phenomenological analysis, the phenomenon of friction 'showed itself' to be an essential part of the perceived experiences. Friction was characterised by a tension between an absence of friction, which describes experiences of participating in YBP smoothly, and the presence of friction, which included experiences of resistance. The students also oscillated between experiences of I-here and now, and Me-my future teaching profession. At least to some extent, the YBP that was practised during the course changed the students' views of what education in 'human in motion' can be by discovering and breaking their habitual attitudes towards PE. Rather than being discussed in terms of 'benefits', the YBP practice charged the body, the room and the group with a heightened awareness of the present moment that could also be expressed verbally. It is anticipated that this kind of reflexive knowledge will help the student to make careful didactical considerations in their future teaching practices.

Background. Principles such as instructional alignment and step-by-step progression are often seen as crucial features of good assessment practices in school physical education (PE). These features are problematic from nonlinear educational perspectives, which are based on the idea that movement learning cannot be expected to take place in the same manner for all students. Without some resolution of the contradiction between nonlinear pedagogies and principles of good assessment, the likelihood of physical educators fully embracing any kind of nonlinear approach to movement education remains doubtful.

Purpose and research question. Our purpose in this paper is to illustrate how assessment for and of learning (AfL and AoL) can look when implemented in nonlinear movement education practices.

Methods. Illustrations of AfL and AoL are drawn from an investigation in which one educator implements a nonlinear movement education module. The module focuses on juggling for students at high school (grade nine students aged approximately 15 years). The module provided students with 10 x 50-minute lessons to explore juggling. Data were generated through observations (film clips and field notes) and ethnographic-type interviews that were conducted with the students during the lessons.

Findings. In the context of the nonlinear movement education module, AfL became: Interacting with students in joint exploration; Introducing learning strategies; Encouraging students to clarify and verbalise the object of learning; Helping students identify critical aspects of the movement activity, and; Inviting students to consider alternative learning trajectories. The educator then evaluates the students' learning experiences in the context of a group performance at the end of the module. This performance can be seen as an instance of holistic assessment within a nonlinear movement education practice.

Conclusions. The suggested holistic perspective on PE assessment could help educators to: circumvent dichotomies such as mind-body and theory-practice; approach students as active meaning-makers; re-frame students' actions as emergent and context-dependent; and replace direct instruction with explorative teaching and learning methods. The major contribution of this study is that it shows how assessment for and of learning can be implemented in nonlinear movement education practices within a linear, goal-related and criterion-referenced, education system.

The aim of this study is to highlight gender norms in physical education (PE) dance lessons, in order to analyse how secondary school students, both girls and boys, negotiate these norms. To do this, we used Bourdieu's concept of masculine domination and Butler's theory of heteronormativity. Video material was collected from eight Swedish secondary schools. This material was analysed qualitatively with the help of masculine domination and heteronormativity. We bring to light three relevant vignettes that illustrate gender norms during the dance lessons. The first vignette explains that, in most cases, girls choreograph and boys execute. Hence, this situation testifies the emergence of traditional and normative gendered positions between students, accordingly to their gender. Secondly, if the roles are reversed between girls and boys, suggesting that masculine domination is less prevalent during the dance lessons, we demonstrate that girls are still dominated because they teach boys how they should lead girls (at least so that it looks like they are leading). Finally, we observed that masculine domination can be considered a double oppression on boys and girls. There appears a co-construction of the students' own submission because girls teach boys how these have to be masculine, meanwhile boys, victims of their own oppression, keep the position as followers in this feminine activity. In parallel, girls assign masculine and feminine positions according to the gender of the students and support, eventually, the reproduction of balance of power representing the heteronormativity of gendered norms. In conclusion, masculine domination seems, at first glance, to be challenged in PE dance lessons because girls have the dominant role. However, by keeping the balance of power between the gendered positions, they strengthen heteronorms, that is, a principal element of the emergence of masculine domination.

Purpose: To (a) present a theoretical framework that describes how learners' movement habits become relevant in the development of movement capability and (b) present data that illustrate how this process occurs in practice. Method: An investigation with preservice physical education teachers was conducted in two phases. The first phase involved examining participants' movement habits, and the second phase involved examining the participants' development of novel capabilities in the context of unicycling. Results: Empirical materials from two participants are presented as case studies. The cases demonstrate how different sets of movement habits interact with novel tasks, making the demand for creative action more or less likely. The cases also demonstrate how subjective and physical elements are interwoven. Finally, the cases provide insights into potentially productive habits for movement learning. Discussion/Conclusion: The paper is concluded with pedagogical implications, including a consideration of how crises might be managed in educational contexts.

Background: Researchers have long studied the social stratification of physical activity patterns in terms of 'determinants' of physically active lifestyles. In this article, we set out to explore how Bourdieu's concept logic of practice can be used as an intermediating analytical tool to promote understanding rather than the calculation of human participation in movement culture. Theoretical framework: The logic of the practice is similar to the logic of the logician, but it differs in terms of temporality and directionality. Specifically, where the logician needs not take notice to such worldly matters, they are inevitably inherent in social life. Thus, logics of practice guide how practice is played out as well as, on the level of the unconscious, the attitude of its participants towards themselves, the practice, and each other. Different logics of practice, as previously theorised by Engstrom, may 'taste' differently to people depending on their habitus, that is, their embodied dispositions. In this article, such logics of practice of movement culture are investigated further. Purpose: The purpose of the article is to investigate how gender and social position relate to participation in movement cultures that are guided by different logics of practice. Method: In 1968, just over 2000 Swedish teenagers who were born in 1953, answered a questionnaire about their participation in movement culture. New data collections took place in 1973, 1978, 1983, 1994 and 2006/2007. The current paper is based on data collected from 846 individuals, now 63 years old, who chose to participate in a new data collection. Data about self-reported participation in movement culture, and the stated taste (or dis-taste) for certain logics of practice in movement culture, was calculated in relation to gender, level of education (cultural capital) and self-reported class affiliation (economic capital). Results and conclusions: The statistical analysis indicates that while the logic of performing in this study indicates masculine and upper-class values, the logic of experiencing indicates feminine and academic values. The logic of improving seems to hold a middle-ground position. Importantly one of the logics, experiencing nature, which is actually also the one that most of the 63 year-olds express a taste for, seem not to be linked to either gender or social position. We conclude that this may have important societal and pedagogical implications, for example, that increasing the possibilities to experience nature could facilitate participation in movement culture at least among Swedish upper middle-aged people.

Heteronormativity and the idea of binary sex constrain sport and exercise as well as many gender equality measures that are implemented in sport and exercise contexts. This strongly affects trans people's opportunities to participate. The purpose of the paper is to explore trans performativity in relation to gender equality efforts in sport and exercise. Through interviews with ten trans individuals, we untangle how trans is, in the words of Karen Barad, produced in and through agential intra-actions of multiple apparatuses of bodily production. Our diffractive analysis shows how meaning comes to matter in sport and exercise regarding what trans 'is,' who and how one can identify as 'trans,' and in what ways trans individuals experience inclusion and exclusion. The study demonstrates challenges with reconciling gender equality and trans inclusion in sport and exercise contexts given current conceptualizations of sport and exercise, gender equality, and trans.

Skill development was traditionally seen through a positivist lens. Research was based on mind-body, individual-environment, and performer-skill dualisms, and researchers assumed that universal principles would ensure optimal development. Metaphorically, these assumptions represented a target hitting understanding of skill development. The goal was for the performer to hit the target of optimal performance as reliably as possible. Such an understanding commits researchers and practitioners to practical and methodological approaches. The aim of this paper is to reconsider skill development and think beyond a target hitting metaphor. To achieve this aim, we outline a kinesio-cultural exploration approach to skill development. This approach is based on a metaphoric understanding of skill development as familiarizing oneself with a landscape. Attaining familiarity in movement landscapes, or "kinescapes", requires spending time in these fields, attending to critical aspects, and remaining flexible. From this perspective, skilled performers are qualitatively different to "target hitting" performers.

Movement learning has become a prominent issue in recent sport pedagogy research, including a particular concern about the new perspectives of movement learning. The turn towards new perspectives is partly spurred by discontent with the conventional perspectives of movement learning. The purpose of the article is to explore a journey into the kinescape of unicycling. The article can be seen as a case study of what it means to learn (how) to unicycle for one student teacher in the midst of a pedagogical research module and with the aid of the Deleuzian notion of a triadic relationship between percepts, affects and concepts. The analysis points to how a student, in the midst of material features such as equipment, the sport hall, other people, and instructional video clips, is mapping connections between concepts (what unicycling can be), percepts (a-ha moments) and affects (what moves him to continue practising unicycling), in ways that allow him to learn to unicycle with astonishing pace. His practising of unicycling is guided by particular strategies for exploration and experimentation that his experiences of board culture offer him. Rather than any general principles of movement learning, of importance here are the particular ways in which kinesio-cultural exploration may offer non-linear resources for movement learning. We conclude that this approach to learning may stimulate pedagogies that are not only effective but also more inclusive because they are more creative and more open than linear approaches to movement learning.

Research about physical education teacher education (PETE) indicates that the education program attracts homogeneous groups of students, consisting mainly of young men originating from the country in question and who have academic backgrounds. The purpose of this article is, through a case study of one Swedish PETE institution, to explore a cohort of 60 students regarding background characteristics (gender, social and migration background) and secondary characteristics (school success, experience of sport and physical activity cultures, and perceived physical ability). The case study indicated that the students have slightly more diverse backgrounds than is found in previous PETE research, but at the same time, they remain fairly homogeneous regarding, e.g. such as school success, the experience of sport and physical activity, and perceived physical ability. Attracting a more diverse group of students does not mean necessarily that the students are equally diverse when it comes to experiences of movement culture, and the abilities and knowledge that they have gained from participation in this culture.

Knowledge about associations between school-based initiatives and physical activity patterns is limited. The purpose of this paper was to examine associations between factors in the school environment, physical activity and sedentary time during school time. The cross-sectional study included 1139 adolescents aged 13–14 from 34 schools. Physical activity and sedentary time were measured using hip-worn accelerometers. Factors in the school environment included health policy, a mobile phone ban during breaks, organized physical activities during breaks and activity breaks during lessons reported by teachers. The frequency and duration of breaks and physical education (PE) lessons were collected from school schedules. The results showed significant associations between health policy (β = 3.87, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.37, 5.23), the mobile phone ban (β = 2.51, 95% CI: 1.29, 3.94) and PE; total duration (β = 0.08, 95% CI: 0.05, 0.11), average duration (β = 0.08, 95% CI: 0.01, 0.13) and frequency (β = 1.73, 95% CI: 0.50, 3.04) and moderate-vigorous physical activity. There were negative associations between health policy (β = −6.41, 95% CI: −10.24, −2.67), the mobile phone ban (β = −3.75, 95% CI: −7.25, −0.77) and PE; total duration (β = −0.15, 95% CI: −0.23, −0.08) and average duration (β = −0.14, 95% CI: −0.27, −0.03) and time spent sedentary. Adolescents attending schools with health policies, mobile phone bans and more time for PE showed higher levels of physical activity and lower sedentary time.

Background: Advocacy through the work of many scholars in physical education and sport pedagogy highlights a significant direction towards which physical education is moving in light of calls for change. Importantly, and despite the 'newness' of the terms, 'pedagogical models' and 'Models-based Practice' (MbP) are beginning to shape the vocabulary of physical education and sport pedagogy. Purpose: To ask what happens if we take some of the 'good stuff associated with models and apply it in a different way while also taking some of the critical points raised towards models into consideration. Put simply, we (as scholars with different views on MbP) want to step off the beaten track to take a road less travelled and engage in a respectful, agonistic debate about the 'M' and the 'P' in MbP. Key arguments: From a practical perspective, the diversity of the language used in describing models and practices in physical education indicates both a growing excellence and tradition in the field and a degree of confusion. A number of phrases are currently used to identify the same concept with individuals unaware of alternative language use. At the heart of this paper lies the manner in which one interprets the use of the terms 'model', 'practice' and 'practise'. Discussion: Given the 'hope' inherent in pedagogical model development and implementation, we acknowledge that many of the negative or unintended consequences often arise as a result of the 'happening' both in research and in practice. However, by thinking in terms of what it is in students' actions that teachers and researchers should pay attention to in order for them to see what students learn, and in what direction this learning is developing, we are better able to see the outcomes of using MbP. In this way, the hope embedded in the chosen model, and the happenings teachers or researchers aspire to see, could be better aligned. Modelling and practicing through the focus on adaption and negotiation in various complex contexts has the potential to expand the field more than blueprints that potentially narrow the field. Conclusions: By recognising the dangers inherent in an essentialist notion of models (i.e. by nouning or proper nouning them), and by remembering the roles set aside for teachers in the development of pedagogical models, it is important that the practising of MbP always retains a very real sense of becoming. By continuing to problematize the M and the P, and by engaging in respectful and agonistic debate, we are better able to unite the hope and the happening of MbP.

The purpose of the article is to outline how Deleuzian concepts, notably the notions of apprenticeship in signs based on a pedagogy of the concept, can stimulate thinking and understanding of movement learning, and provide insights about pedagogical implications in various movement educational settings. Methodologically, the article falls somewhere in between theoretical exposition and presentation of original empirical research, i.e., a "theoreticoempirical" exposition. We borrowed some ideas formulated by Deleuze (and Guattari), which have been further developed by educational researchers, about "an apprenticeship in signs" based on "a pedagogy of the concept," to analyse situations where students explore new movements. We use material generated from pedagogical interventions comprising of exploration of kinescapes. In these interventions, school and university students are encouraged to explore, and learn, juggling, unicycling and dancing. Findings indicate how students pass through interpretative illusions until some of them grasp difference in itself in what could be called its immanent differentiation of the actual, i.e., they learn how to juggle, unicycle or dance. This is what we designate genuine learning. The triadic relation between concepts, percepts and affects offer us clues to what juggling, unicycling or dancing mean to learners (concepts), what learners pay attention to while practising (percepts), and what gets them moving (affects). Importantly, through viewing learning as an apprenticeship in signs, the Deleuzian approach reminds us that the triadic relation is open-ended, meaning that concepts, percepts and affects are never final but always a potential actualisation. Concepts, percepts and affects are constantly in the process of becoming. Since genuine learning is not about narrowing down how a movement should be executed and experienced, the task of a movement educator could, then, be to accompany learners in explorative pursuits. In this way, teachers can help learners escape preconceptions about movements (who can do what and when) and instead explore new movement opportunities.

Research on motor learning frequently reports gender differences. However, there seems to be limited tools in the research with which to make use of these insights in educationally relevant ways. Movement learning and gender are intensely researched in movement education research, but the issues rarely intersect in the literature. The purpose of this article is to shed light on how movement learning and gender norms intersect when students learn to juggle. A pedagogical intervention in two secondary school classes (15?16 year olds) was explored ethnographically. Two composite narratives illustrate how gender norms affected the juggling practise to a different extent in the two classes, indicating that these norms are highly contextual. Learning to juggle seems to include aspects of both ?doing boy? and ?doing girl?, i.e. regarding respectively controlling objects in space and persistent practising. The findings indicate some ways in which teachers can help students transcend traditional gender norms.

Background Movement learning has been thoroughly investigated in the area of motor learning research. Although existing studies have contributed to a substantial understanding of motor learning, many have been criticized for their reliance on experimental designs where learning is decontextualized, simplified, and investigated in laboratory settings. Researchers have claimed that motor learning theories emanating from such studies are grounded on a dualistic approach to learning and that the theories are often difficult to apply in educational settings. More pedagogically-inspired studies of movement education have investigated movement learning, but the majority of this research has focused on teaching. This focus has left the process of learning somewhat unexplored. There is thus a need for empirical studies that investigate students' learning processes in educational contexts. Purpose The aim of this study is to explore, analyze, and understand how learners develop their movement capability when they are provided opportunities to choose different ways of learning activities. Theory and method We combine Ryle's and Polanyi's ideas concerning practical knowledge with Hirst's and Carlgren's idea of knowing as familiarity with a landscape. Ryle's notion of 'intelligent practice' is used in thinking of the kinds of actions individuals might engage in. Characterizing features of intelligent practice includes being sensitive to one's own actions, changing one's behavior as the result of mistakes, and profiting from the examples of others. We understand the development of movement capability as continuously expanding one's ability to discern nuances and their relationships. This perspective fits well with Polanyi's notion of focal and subsidiary awareness. Taken together Ryle's, Polanyi's, Hirst's, and Carlgren's notions related to knowing and learning inform our perspective on learning in movement education. Based on this perspective on knowing and learning, an action-oriented study was conducted. The researchers created pedagogical modules and collaborated with teachers and university educators to develop learning sequences in line with the needs of their respective groups. With each group, we produced data based on video and field notes. Three successful learners were chosen and followed in-depth with regard to their learning actions. Findings The findings show the learners' varying ways of exploring a movement landscape as playing around in the terrain; checking the map; investigating one chosen path; occupying the vantage point; imitating and actively observing. The findings suggest that oscillating between varying kinds of learning actions is an additional characterizing feature of 'intelligent practice.' Discussion The findings demonstrate how the learning of movement capability could occur when providing opportunities to engage in 'intelligent practice' while at the same time directing their focal awareness toward what is most beneficial to them. Opposed to a 'step-by-step' approach to learning, the learners come to know a movement landscape as extending one's capability to discern and differentiate details, nuances, and their relationships. The findings suggest that it may be beneficial for learners to get opportunities to oscillate between different kinds of learning actions.

Contemporary ways of understanding human movements, specifically movement learning, are heavily dominated by individualistic, dualistic and mechanistic perspectives. These perspectives are individualistic in the sense that in research as well as in educational practice movements/movers are typically decontextualized, they are dualistic in the sense that the body is taken to be ‘inhabited’, even ‘governed,’ by a rational mind which is not itself a part of that body; and they are mechanistic in the sense that movements and movement learning can be ‘calculated’.

This approach has supported the dominance of a westernised and predominantly white, masculinised and heteronormative view of able bodies, embodiment and movements. Hence, it has contributed to marginalise not only other approaches and perspectives and individuals.

New research has evolved, including new approaches and these held perspectives have been challenged by social and culturally sensitive, holistic as well as pluralistic, and dynamic/organic perspectives of human movements and moving humans. Examples of such research can be found in disciplines such as; physical education and pedagogy, ethnography, philosophy, and sociology.

Learning Movements: New Perspectives of Movement Education provides the societal and epistemological background for these new approaches and will be essential in disseminating this knowledge to movement educators, academics and researchers as well as professionals within education, sports, health and fitness, dance, outdoor activities, etc., and that it will spearhead new and inclusive practices within these settings.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to New Perspectives of Movement Learning

Håkan Larsson

2. Metaphors of Movement Learning

Dean Barker, Gunn Nyberg and Heléne Bergentoft

3. Movement Learning in Educational Contexts

Håkan Larsson

4. Beyond Molecularization: Constructivist, Situated and Activity Theory Approaches to Movement Learning

David Kirk and Elise Houssin

5. A Phenomenological Perspective of Movement Learning

Øyvind Standal

6. A Phenomenographic Perspective of Movement Learning

Gunn Nyberg

7. Foucault’s Poststructuralist Approaches to Understanding Movement Learning

Pirkko Markula

8. A Transactional Understanding of Movement Learning

Joacim Andersson and Mikael Quennerstedt

9. Practising Movement

Kenneth Aggerholm

10. Symbolic Interactionism And Movement Learning

Dean Barker

11. Teaching and Learning Running Differently: A Phenomenographic Approach to Movement Education

Gunn Nyberg

12. Movement Learning and Pupils’ Artistic Expression Analysing Situated Artistic Relations in Physical Education

Joacim Andersson and Jonas Risberg

13. An Emotional Journey: The Significance of Aesthetic Experience for Motor Learning

Ninitha Maivorsdotter

14. Tangible tricks and transitions in skateboarding

Åsa Bäckström

15. The Ecstatic Pump and the Logic of Pain. Learning Processes and Embodiment in Fitness Culture

Jesper Andreasson and Kevin Holger Mogensen

16. Conclusion

Håkan Larsson

[Text från förlaget]

Since March 2020, most physical education (PE) teachers in Scandinavia have faced the challenges of remote teaching. Homeschooling has perhaps been particularly challenging for PE teachers compared to other teachers, given the essential role of bodily contact, interaction, social negotiations, game playing and shared expressions in PE (Varea and González-Calvo, 2020).

Having worked with covid conditions for a year now, we trust that teachers have worked out various solutions that, we hope, are relevant and meaningful for the students. At the same time, both from our personal experiences and early research findings (Mercier et al. 2021), it appears that PE teachers have largely provided students with physical activity and fitness training during the pandemic.

In this short text, we want to share an idea for a concrete alternative to fitness exercises, which, although important, is only one part of the PE curriculum. It springs from a pedagogical model we outlined in a double article from 2018, which focuses on practising. Practising, which in German is üben and in the Scandinavian languages øve/öva, is, briefly put, a form of activity in which you seek to improve some part of yourself through repeated efforts.

Recently, one of our colleagues, Dillon Landi, made us aware that this practising model is particularly relevant for teaching during the pandemic. While we did not have remote teaching in mind when we outlined the model, we realise now that it could be a relevant way of coping with the current situation. It can, we believe, guide how teachers can facilitate movement activities for students at home that are both meaningful and educationally relevant.

In the following, we will describe what remote teaching with a focus on practising might look like. We hope it can inspire teaching methods that add to the list of pedagogical options available for teachers during the pandemic.

Two key value issues in youth sports development intersect in this article: 1) gender equality, and 2) the opportunity for youths to voice their concerns about their own participation. The purpose is to explore ?gender equality? as a topic of deliberation in Swedish youth sport, and specifically young sports person?s possibilities for speaking out about gender equality issues. The article draws on material from an interview study with 17 leaders and coaches, and 24 teenage athletes, with a particular attention on a focus group interview with three young badminton players. The findings indicate a dominating discourse about sport and gender that may contribute to undermine both the legitimacy of gender equality efforts and the opportunity for youths to voice their concerns. According to most leaders and coaches in the study, no problems with gender equality exist. However, some of the athletes voice experiences of injustice in their sports participation. At the same time, they indicated that talking about perceived injustice can be problematic in a sporting context. The article concludes that that there is ample room for creating opportunities for young athletes to systematically voice their concerns about their own participation, for example concerning gender (in)equality.

Background: Research has indicated that an aesthetic perspective on movement is lacking in physical education and that exploratory teaching assignments are rare. Purpose: The aim of the paper is to explore how PE teachers approach the issue of teaching expressive dance and which learning processes students are involved in while dancing. Participants, research design and data collection: Sixty-eight students from three different secondary school classes and four PE teachers at one municipal school in Sweden participated in a pedagogical intervention. A dance education unit built around Rudolf Laban's framework of movement was video recorded. Careful attention was paid to ethical considerations. Data analysis: Using Dewey's transactional perspective as a holistic starting point contributed to dissolve the dualism between individuals and the environment (Dewey and Bentley 1949/1991). The analysis was informed by practical epistemology analysis [Wickman, P.-O., and L. ostman. 2002. "Learning as a Discourse Change: a Sociocultural Mechanism." Science Education 86 (5): 601-623], where the terms gaps, relations and encounters were applied to distinguish various types of transactions. The concept of risk [Biesta, G. 2013. The Beautiful Risk of Education. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers] was utilised to explore how teachers' pedagogical methods interacted with the environment in the pedagogical intervention. Findings: Most transactions occurring during the dance unit were interpreted as narrow transactions, meaning that the students' actions followed responses to the teachers' initiation of a dance assignment. Expanded transactions occurred when the students were given the opportunity and responsibility to find their own solutions to dance assignments. This is interpreted as leading to an expanded purpose, which involves new ways of moving. Interrupted transactions, i.e. when actions were stopped and no encounters occurred, were observed in the form of students hesitating or avoiding participation. Teaching methods involving a certain degree of risk enable creative and non-predetermined movements. The use of unfamiliar music avoided a reproduction of stereotypical dance styles. Dimmed lighting in the sports hall and the opportunity to work in separate rooms helped the students negotiating environmental risks by attending to the organisation and aesthetics of the space. Conclusions: Expressive dance assignments can take teaching in PE in new and expanded directions. The teachers programmed gradually more risks into their lessons, which in line with Biesta's understanding (2013) enabled the students to explore new and unpredictable movements. The students developed new ways of expressing themselves and were able to focus on the meaning of the movements. Expressive dance assignments are well suited to an exploratory method of teaching and this interplay can challenge existing logics of competition and ranking in PE.

Many countries around the world have experienced neoliberal turns which strongly affected educational systems. In Sweden, for example, the social democratic Welfare State has taken a radical neoliberal turn since the 1990s. A number of school reforms have been carried out and they are described as the most extensive in a hundred years of public schooling. These changes have also affected the subject of Physical Education and Health (PEH). Growing research interest is one of those changes, and PEH has become one of the most explored areas in Swedish physical culture. This article points to some of the new research, identifying and formulating possible educational challenges facing teachers as we move into the 2020s. Central questions are: What characterizes teaching in PEH? What do students learn in the subject? Is there effective evaluation in Swedish PEH?

Purpose: To describe student learning when physical education teacher and students attempted to develop movement capability. Methods: The study reports on the implementation of a 10-lesson pedagogical sequence. Data were generated using observations, interviews, and student diaries with one grade 9 class (26 students aged approximately 15 years) as they developed juggling capabilities. Data were analyzed using the notion of corporeal thresholds. Results: Results show that (a) a "throw-throw-catch-catch" pattern emerged as a corporeal threshold for juggling within the sequence; (b) most learners had crossed the threshold at the outset and were able to experiment with different forms of juggling during the sequence; (c) some students crossed the threshold during the sequence. These students experienced liminal phases, characterized by frustration and an initial feeling that they were juggling in the "wrong" way; and (d) some learners became stuck, pretended to know what to do, and did not cross the threshold during the 10 lessons. Discussion/Conclusion: Three issues related to the threshold approach are discussed: student identity and group membership, the process of learning, and the emotional dimensions of movement learning. This study is concluded with reflections on the implications of the results for scholarship.

Background: Research on physical education (PE) shows a prevalence of narrow and reductionist views on what counts as ability. These views tend to privilege certain students and marginalize others, and often equate ability with technique-based sport performance. A lot of research is still directed towards the above problem. However, very few have devoted time and energy to actually resolving this problem. If no alternatives to narrow and reductionist views of ability are presented, then research will struggle to make a difference to the practice of PE. Assuming that movement is a key element in PE, the question of what counts as ability in PE is, we argue, a question of what capabilities a learner needs to develop in order to move in different ways. Investigating what movement capability can mean will provide possibilities for discussing and negotiating the meaning of ability in PE when the learning goal is something other than technique-based sport performance. Purpose: The aim of this paper is to further advance the knowledge base of what movement capability can mean within the context of PE. By achieving this aim, we intend to challenge narrow views on ability and thereby provide enhanced possibilities for PE to make a difference for students' abilities through education. Theory and method: The process of coming to know something can be seen as exploring, with all senses, a landscape. Exploration involves recognizing details and nuances of the landscape and their relationships to one another. In this investigation, we examine what there is to know in the landscape of juggling using Ryle's and Polanyi's notions of knowing and learning. In line with a focus on the learners' perspectives, interviews and observations were conducted with students whilst they were coming to know juggling. Ethnographic-type conversations were used to help students describe what they seemed to know or were aiming to know. Students were invited to write diaries with a focus on their experiences during the learning process, which we hoped could extend our insights regarding the experiential aspects in learning. Findings: Findings of the investigation suggest that in the group of students, four significant ways of knowing the landscape of juggling are important: grasping a pattern; grasping a rhythm; preparing for the next throw and catch and navigating one's position and throwing. The research challenges the narrow view on ability as technique-based sport performance by providing examples of what movement capability can mean in terms of knowing a movement landscape alternatively to knowing a specific movement 'in the right way.'

Scholars argue that movement content knowledge in physical education teacher education (PETE) needs to be revisited and problematised. In this paper we develop the concept of movement capability representing a widened view of movement content knowledge. If teacher educators want to teach movement capability as an intrinsic educational goal in PETE there is an apparent need to consider what to teach, how it is taught and also how movement capability is understood by the learners. The aim of this paper is to analyse how PETE students experience the meaning of movement capability through the teaching in aquatics, dance and ice-skating. This study takes its departure from a number of previous empirical studies investigating the meaning of movement capability. Interviews with seven PETE students, divided into two focus groups, were conducted on three occasions. A phenomenographic analysis shows four qualitatively different ways of experiencing the meaning of movement capability. Major differences that can be seen when comparing the results of a previous study on physical education teachers and students in PETE are the aspect of subjective experiences and the aspect of the observer. In the main, the students do not seem to take into account an observer?s point of view to the same extent as the group of teachers. The results will hopefully contribute to a deeper and more complex understanding of what can be seen as movement capability in PETE and physical education, and thereby enhance development of the teaching and learning of this capability.

Emotional dimensions of physical education have garnered attention from scholars in the last two decades. Many scholars claim that emotions significantly affect learning and that positive emotions such as joy and pleasure are necessary for continued participation in movement activities beyond the classroom. Much of the existing literature, however, is based on the idea that emotions comprise internal mental states that are retrospectively oriented. In the current paper, we work with alternative principles that can create new understandings of the affective dimensions of PE and specifically, movement learning. We draw on symbolic interactionist principles, framing emotions as multimodal communicative resources that are performed in social contexts. From this perspective, we demonstrate how emotions: (1) can be investigated as part of the production of broader sequences of pedagogical action and (2) relate to issues of knowledge, identity and authority. We present observational material generated with PE teacher education students as they develop movement capability. We focus on three interactional episodes in which fear, joy and resignation are performed by students interacting with either peers or an observing researcher. In each case, we demonstrate how emotions: affiliate or dis-affiliate the actor with the movement knowledge in focus, index an institutionally recognizable identity and influence the subsequent actions of the participants in the interactional sequence. The key thesis developed in the paper is that as symbolic resources, emotions have important consequences for actors within movement learning environments. The paper is concluded with reflections on the implications of the approach for practitioners along with a consideration of questions in need of further scientific attention.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse and discuss physical education teacher education (PETE) students? conceptions of teaching and assessment of movement capability as a part of content knowledge in aquatics, dance and ice-skating at a university in Sweden. The theoretical perspective involves Shulman?s concept of content knowledge, the further elaboration of content knowledge into common content knowledge, and the theoretical perspective underpinning movement capability. The sample consists of two groups with a total of seven PETE students who volunteered to take part in group interviews. Semi-structured interviews with the two groups were conducted on three occasions. Findings display that the students? conceptions of movement capability seem to be focused around performance of movements. Further, the participants felt the messages to be unclear in terms of what they are to know regarding movement capability before entering PETE. There was also a contradiction in that the PETE students felt it to be obvious that they would ?know? certain movements, and at the same time they requested clear and distinct criteria when it came to the performance of movements. This study shows that expectations in terms of PETE students? levels of movement content knowledge need to be further investigated and discussed. This study also highlights the importance of conceptualising what PETE students need to learn if they are to see the need to develop their movement capability on their own. Assessments of students? reflections on what it means to master movements are discussed as an alternative to assessment of performance of movements.

The aim of the chapter is to describe and analyse how the ‘doing’ of masculinity has been performed in Sweden over time, and within two cultural contexts—that of organized (mainly competitive) sport, and physical education in school. Situated within the development of the Swedish welfare state, the research shows that the concept and idea of gender equality is largely a hegemonic sociocultural ideal. At the political and sociocultural level, there is an ongoing movement towards gender-neutral ways of constructing and understanding bodies as well as sport and physical education in Sweden. At the same time the research shows that on an interrelational level, this picture is less clear, as physical education teachers, athletes, coaches and others seemingly tend to talk about gender equality as an ideal, but sometimes fail to practise this in day-to-day living. Nevertheless, embedded in and part of social life at large, the chapter argues that relational patterns are, and will hopefully continue to be, greatly influenced by and part of the Swedish welfare system, which by necessity influences men’s choices in contemporary Sweden concerning how to ‘do’ masculinity and physical activity in relation to more gender inclusive configurations.

A physical education (PE) teacher’s role is complex, partly because the lines are blurred between teacher of curricular PE, teacher of academic PE and school sport coach. Despite PE teachers and teacher educators having similar missions, objectives and tasks, and often sharing the same initial preparation and induction, several processes and experiences serve to distinguish each role from the other. P. Bourdieu would suggest that teachers and teacher educators pursue their work on different fields, which may explain why they tend to value things differently. Being positioned in different fields contributes to various socializing experiences that may produce specific ideas about who teachers are and what they should do, and likewise for teacher educators. Many teacher educators express good intentions in wanting to work with teachers rather than on teachers. In order to create an integrated approach to teachers’ and teacher educators’ work, it is useful to consider the dominant conceptualizations of the processes of teaching.

Research about sport and gender equity has taken various forms in different historical and scientific contexts but a general conclusion is that sport still is male-dominated terrain. Why is this, despite decades of gender equity work and initiatives? Here, answers were sought through interviews with 47 male power holders - leaders and coaches - in Swedish sport. Men from seven sports were interviewed. The aim was to, by means of a Foucauldian discourse analysis, explore how 'gender equity' was interpreted and valued: how do the leaders and coaches position themselves, and how are they positioned, in relation to gender equity? The findings show that four subject positions are articulated: the sceptic, the cynic, the women's rights advocate and the constructionist. The sceptic raises doubts about the reasonableness and fairness of gender equity, the cynic constructs gender equity as something unrealistic or impossible, the women's rights advocate articulates a semi-essential and quantitatively oriented support for gender equity, and the constructionist voice a norm-critical approach. We conclude that the constructionist probably is more aligned with the gender equity objectives of both Swedish and international sport organising bodies than the women's rights advocate, but that more distinct and detailed norm-critical approaches to gender equity are required ahead. A more successful implementation of gender equity initiatives is related to changed interpretations of and attitudes towards the fundamentals of gender equity work among those who are to realise it, but also to clarifications of what 'gender equity' means and why it is important.

Within the overlapping fields of the sociology of sport, physical education and health education, the use of critical theories and the critical research paradigm has grown in scope. Yet what social impact has this research had?

This book considers the capacity of critical research and associated social theory to play an active role in challenging social injustices or at least in ‘making a difference’ within health and physical education (HPE) and sporting contexts. It also examines how the use of different social theories impacts sport policies, national curricula and health promotion activities, as well as the practices of HPE teaching and sport training and competition.

Critical Research in Sport, Health and Physical Education is a valuable resource for academics and students working in the fields of research methods, sociology of sport, physical education and health.

(Text from publisher)