Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

In recent decades, the development of the school subject of physical education (PE) has in some countries led to that various movement activities (e.g., sports) are no longer seen as synonymous with the notion of ‘content’, although such activities still appear during lessons. Instead, content is now considered to refer to the knowledge and capacities that are integral in movement practice, or which are necessary to fulfil the purpose of the activity (be it recreative, competitive, exercise-related, or else). Partly, this development is related to a greater focus in physical education curriculaon generalised rather than specialised knowledge in movement. Partly, the develop-ment is also spearheaded by assumptions that too great focus of specialised knowledge in movement contributes to marginalisation and exclusion of some groups of students (among other things because specialised knowledge is often as-sociated with set standards, competition and elimination). However, it has proven difficult to articulate what the generalised knowledge in movement consists of. Even if knowledge in movement is mainly embodied (i.e., there is not necessarily any need to be able to verbalise it in order to be able to solve movement tasks), it is nevertheless important within educational contexts to be able to put it into words in order to also be able to, for example, problematise – and possibly critique – it. Not only is generalised knowledge in movement hard to conceptualise, it has also proven difficult to identify a) the primary source of this knowledge, or where it is developed and refined, and b) which ‘parts’ or aspects of the knowledge are selected for teaching purposes in PE. The purpose of this symposium is to present insights from recent and ongoing research that aims to explore, verbalise, and problematise generalised knowledge in movement in PETE. How can this knowledge be systematised and codified, if not in terms of sports and various other movement activities? Or in simpler terms, how can generalised knowledge in movement be described? What are its primary sources and based on what principles is the knowledge to be recontextualised within PETE selected? What happens to the knowledge in the process of recontextualization? How can generalised knowledge in movement become powerful for students in their general education? We perceive that there is significant value in including a symposium about knowledge in movement. The development within PETE over several decades has meant that knowledge in movement more generally is getting less and less space in the education. This can have many reasons. Knowledge in movement is not valued in an academic context. Unlike in most other subjects, future PE teachers are assumed to already know large parts of their subject content. Sometimes, PE is not even perceived to aim at developing knowledge in movement among students and therefore future teachers do not need to be trained in that aspect either.