Outdoor life has been a part of the Swedish PE and school system for more than a century. A strong belief that outdoor life could contribute to children’s health, well being, as well as to national identity has surrounded outdoor life on a steering document level. In spite of this, studies show that outdoor life gradually has decreased as content during the last decades. The aim of the study has been to increase the knowledge of how outdoor life has been represented within school and PE. Method used is a curricula content analysis. The empirical material consists of curricula from 1905 to 2011. Two paradigm shifts emerge: i/ outdoor life becomes concentrated to the subject PE during early 1990s, ii/ a new and changed valuing of outdoor life is established in the steering documents, separating outdoor education from sports activities out door. This can be understood as a result of a growing tension between two different cultures of acknowledgement within the social practice of PE based on different ‘logic of practices’, but also as a result of school reforms leaving a former culture of cultural literacy such as the learning of landscape, sense of place and literature.