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 ‘content’, although they still appear in teaching. This development is related to a greater focus on generalised rather than specialised knowledge in movement. The development is also spearheaded by assumptions that too great focus of specialised knowledge in movement contributes to marginalisation and exclusion of some groups of students. Instead, content is now considered to mean the knowledge and capacities that are integral in movement practice, or which are necessary to fulfil the purpose of an activity. However, it has proven difficult to articulate what this knowledge 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 important within an educational context to be able to put it into words in order to also be able to problematise – and possibly critique – it. Furthermore, it has proven difficult to identify a) the primary source of this knowledge, or where the knowledge 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 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 knowledge inmovement 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? 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 is getting less space in the education. This can have many reasons. Knowledge in movement is not valued in academic education. Unlike in most other subjects, future PE teachers are assumed to already know large parts of their subject content. PE does not aim to develop knowledge in movement among students and therefore future teachers do not need to be trained in that aspect either. The four presentations of the symposium will deal with the following more specific topics: 1. The structure of knowledge in movement in PETE (a Bernsteinian perspective) 2. Powerful knowledge in movement in PETE? (the notion of powerful knowledge was a coined by educational sociologist Michael Young) 3. Knowledge in movement in creative dance (an empirical example) 4. The relationship between the primary fields of knowledge (e.g., ball games, dance, friluftsliv, gymnastics, etc.) and the recontextualising field of PETE (and PE; a Bernsteinian perspective)