ABSTRACT

In many ways this chapter was born some years ago in two separate research projects. In one school a 15-year-old pupil was being interviewed about games in the physical education (PE) curriculum, in the course of which he declared a preference for rugby rather than football. When prompted he reasoned that it took place on the lower pitch and was, therefore, less windy and cold; in fact he hated all PE including the ethos and smell of the changing room and the intimidation provided by those who were good at it. Further pupil interviews provided entry into what is effectively another world in which pupils exercise their own, often complex, sets of interpretations about PE which have relevance within their own frame of reference and which may or may not be available to the teacher. Whilst pupils’ attitudes towards, and opinions about, PE and related contexts has received fairly wide attention, there has been much less emphasis on the pattern of constructions underpinning pupils’ interpretations of PE even though an appreciation of the pupils’ world has great significance for those who structure the context in which it takes place. In another school a group of adolescent girls were expressing their wish for greater equality of opportunity within the PE curriculum, including access to the so called boys’ games. In fact they did not wish to participate in most of these activities and it proved to be more than a simple issue of equality, of having other activities available to them. It was more a matter of having the opportunity to say ‘no’, of being able to exercise some power which, in spite of the emphasis on individualism in the curriculum, is something which has received relatively little attention among the profession.