Previous research has presented contrasting notions of the potential impact of physical education teacher education (PETE) on professional teaching practice. Despite growing scholarship on PETE, work is needed to better understand how PETE can matter to would-be physical education (PE) teachers and teaching in the subject. This article aims to provide insights into when and how PETE matters to further understand how programmes can prepare preservice teachers (PSTs) for their future profession. The article draws on data from two larger research projects and nine doctoral projects conducted in Sweden from 2018 to 2024. We revisit this collective dataset through a reanalysis of all the original data across the projects, complemented by a two-day collaborative analysis workshop involving all researchers to explore when and how PETE matters throughout teacher education during campus-based courses, in the transitions between campus and school-based experiences, and in the shift from teacher education into the initial years of teaching. This iterative analytical process enabled the identification of four categories of when PETE mattered: (i) when knowledge in movement and movement cultures was taught, (ii) when coherence was accommodated, (iii) when opportunities for student subjectification were provided, and (iv) when PETE constituted a driving force for educational change. In contrast to studies that question the impact of PETE, we have pointed to instances when PETE mattered and how. The article shows various ways PETE can prepare PSTs for their upcoming professional lives as teachers and be a proactive part of driving PE as a subject area forward.
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