ABSTRACT
This chapter draws upon data from a qualitative study that focused upon parent's/guardian's and young people's narratives of physical education (PE) classes in schools and the stories they told about the meaning of physical activity in their lives. Family narratives are central to processes of socialisation or the accumulation of cultural capital, including narratives of physical capital. Economic capital, social capital and symbolic capital can interact in varying degrees with cultural capital with regard to narrating the practices of physical activity and sport. The German study concluded that the higher the parent's education, not least when both mother and father are academics, the more likely children are to be fit and competent movers, as well as have a normal body weight. In England and in the US, more general studies on parenting indicate that one such barrier might be related to class-contingent views of child-rearing and early socialization.
