Physical education initial teacher educators’ expressions of critical pedagogy(ies)

Abstract

While an emphasis on social justice has emerged as a theme in initial teacher education (ITE) over the past decade, there is much debate about how to engage ITE students in foregrounding issues of equity and social justice in their own teaching. One strategy, the introduction of critical pedagogy in ITE, has been promoted in teacher education literature since the early 1970s. In subsequent decades it has become apparent that there is a lack of consensus on what critical pedagogy is, and what it means to teach from a critical perspective. Drawing on the ‘big tent’ of critical pedagogies, the purpose of this paper is to focus attention on the evolution and/or devolution of critical pedagogy in physical education initial teacher education (PETE). This paper reports on findings from a research project that explored how six health and physical education teacher educators (PETEs), who teach in a single PETE programme that is underpinned by a critical orientation, understand and enact critical pedagogy. Data were collected through 60-minute semi-structured interviews. A six-step process of inductive thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. This study suggests there is a commitment to social justice from all six of the PETEs. It is evident, however, that there are differences in their understanding of critical pedagogy. These differences reveal each teacher educator’s own valued theoretical perspectives, and manifest themselves in teaching practices in the PETE programme.

Conceptualising social justice and sociocultural issues within physical education teacher education: international perspectives

“…Muros Ruiz and Fernández-Balboa (2005) report that of the 17 teacher educators they interviewed, all of whom claimed to practise a critical pedagogy, more than half did not understand the main principles of critical pedagogy. Philpot (2016) reports that teacher educators in a New Zealand PETE programme underpinned by a critical orientation had understandings that varied from a focus on challenging dominant taken-for-granted assumptions about health, PE and sport, to privileging democratic principles through student input in curriculum planning and assessment, to reflection on pedagogy choices. As critical pedagogy is only one way of approaching education for social justice, these studies suggest that even those who espouse a social justice orientation do so in different ways, for different groups, and to a greater or lesser extent.…”

“…Cliff 2012) and critical pedagogy (e.g. Fernández-Balboa 1997; Philpot 2016). There is substantive physical education (PE) and PETE literature that advocates for students to develop a critical consciousness, appreciate multiple perspectives, and engage in actions to enhance equity, democracy and social justice (Felis-Anaya, Martos-Garcia, and Devís-Devís 2017; Tinning 2016).…”

A comparative study of Canadian and Scottish students’ perspectives on health, the body and the physical education curriculum: the challenge of ‘doing’ critical

“…Students understood that teaching 'physical health' in PE may be problematic but could not articulate how to promote a more holistic form of health. For critical inquiry to lead to critical action or critical pedagogy, students have to be able to connect each issue to themselves and to 'real-life' (Philpot, 2016). In this instance, an exclusive focus on critiquing taken for granted assumptions appears to have limited the potential for students to think creatively and positively about how they might use their critical inquiry to develop their critical pedagogy.…”

“…However, preservice teachers are not constrained by the school curriculum in the same way. Researchers have highlighted how Initial Teacher Education (ITE) experiences can explicitly encourage pre-service PE teachers to engage in critical inquiry to question and resist taken for granted truths related to the body and health (Garrett, 2006;Philpot, 2016). In Scotland, the leading university provider of ITE offers PE students the opportunity to engage in sociocultural debates around topics such as policy, gender, healthism and the body, in courses that can run over three years.…”

“…In Quebec, such opportunities for debate are less extensive but, in a relatively new initiative, students engage in a single course that focuses on similar sociocultural topics. Interestingly, Philpot (2016) suggests that singular courses may not be effective in promoting 'reflective thought and reconstructive action which necessitates the problematisation of both the task of teaching and the context in which it is embedded' (p.…”