Access Type
Open Access Dissertation
Date of Award
January 2011
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Department
Kinesiology and Pedagogy
First Advisor
Nathan McCaughtry
Abstract
In light of growing concern over the relation between physical inactivity and a variety of biomedical and psychosocial conditions and the disjuncture between larger physical activity culture and secondary school physical education curriculum, the purpose of this study was to examine how middle school physical education teachers negotiated content and curricular decisions. A variety of theories guided this study, including Bourdieu's theories of habitus and field (1977), teacher socialization theory (Lawson, 1983; 1988), teacher ideology (Apple, 2004), teacher emotion (Hargreaves, 1998; McCaughtry, 2004), curriculum as a political text (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, 2004), and range of critical and post-structural social theories (Ingram & Simon-Ingram, 1991; Wilber, 2001). This qualitative study was grounded in the interpretive tradition. Eight middle school teachers were observed and interviewed for five whole days over the span of one school year. The main finding from this study revealed that the complex interplay of teachers' personal, institutional, and student factors, and the teachers' consideration of these factors, coalesced in ways that resulted in the perpetuation of competitive sport as the dominant content of their curricula.
Recommended Citation
Ferry, Matthew Daniel, "Secondary physical educators' content negotiations" (2011). Wayne State University Dissertations. 372.
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/372