Gendered encounters: becoming a teacher of HPE
Alison Wrench 1
Robyne Garrett 2
1. University of South Australia
2. University of South Australia
Health and Physical Education (HPE) is a significant space for learning about, performing and
embodying gendered physicality (Brown 2005; Velija & Kumar 2009; Tinning 2010). Pre-service
teachers bring understandings about gender, physicality, and bodies to their university studies.
These understandings, as they relate to HPE teachers are partially informed by a readily
available narrative of sport, especially as developed around male team sports (Wright 1996;
Paechter 2003). Despite the hegemony of discourses of sport in defining gender relations, this is
not in a homogenous way (Connell 2013). This paper uses feminist perspectives to explore how
multiple discourses and power relations circulating in the spaces of family, sport, and teacher
preparation programs inform understandings of gender and the constitution of incipient HPE
teacher subjectivities. Data presented is drawn from semi-structured interviews conducted with
pre-service HPE teachers studying at an Australian university. Foucault’s theorisation of
subjectivity and Bourdieu’s thinking tools of habitus, capital and field are drawn on to analyse
data. Findings reveal that participants’ bodies and physicality are inextricably gendered.
Discourses of sport were found to be significant in establishing a male norm for bodies, ability and
activity. This was problematic for female participants who also turned to discourses of nurturing in
constituting their subjectivities. Participants embodied gender in fluid ways and this was found to
be influenced by primary habitus developed in families, and secondary habitus developed in
schooling, sport and HPE. They do not arbitrarily adopt gendered subject positions but are
influenced by the structures of these spaces, discourses and power relations (Connell &
Messerschmidt 2005). Implications are raised for HPE teacher educators as to how they might
work with pre-service teachers to disrupt hegemonic discourses as a means for developing
pedagogies for greater justice.
References
Brown, D. (2005). "An economy of gendered practices? Learning to teach physical education
from the perspective of Pierre Bourdieu's embodied sociology." Sport, Education and
Society 10(1): 3-23.
Connell, R. (2013). “Supremacy and subversion – gender struggles in sport.” Asia Pacific Journal
of Health, Sport and Physical Education 3 (3): 177-179.
Connell, R. W. & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). "Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept."
Gender & Society 19(6): 829-859.
Paechter, C. (2003). "Masculinities and Femininities as Communities of Practice." Women's
Studies International Forum 26(1): 69-77.
Tinning, R. (2010). Pedagogy and Human Movement: Theory, practice, research. London,
Routledge.
Velija, P. & Kumar, G. (2009). "GCSE physical education and the embodiment of gender." Sport
Education and Society 14(4): 383 — 399.
Wright, J. (1996). "Mapping the discourses of physical education: articulating a female tradition."
Journal of Curriculum Studies 28(3): 331-351.
Alison Wrench – Alison.wrench@unisa.edu.au
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