Examining morality in physical education and youth sport from a social constructionist perspective

In this chapter we show how ways of thinking about morality and behaviour are tied up with what we do as sport and physical education practitioners. We also introduce an alternative way of thinking that might help to develop ethical pedagogies. We begin by examining three ‘interaction episodes’ in three different physical education lessons at an inner city Weiterbildungsschule ² in Basel, Switzerland. Two of the episodes came from the same class. The third episode was observed in a different class with a different teacher. After presenting a brief description of the three episodes, we introduce a social constructionist perspective as a way of thinking about morality. In the third part of the chapter, we apply this perspective to the episodes. In this section, we include a brief discussion of how constructionist understandings might inform ethics pedagogies in the future. The chapter finishes with a brief summary of the chapter’s main arguments.