Sport Education: Ideology, Evidence and Implications for Physical Education in Africa

Abstract

In recent years a neo-liberal sport education paradigm has sought to refurbish traditional physical education frameworks and operative rules. This paper subjects the sport education model to critical scrutiny and deconstruction. It is argued that this model deserves attention because it places the ethics and logic of secondary school physical education on shifting sands. More importantly, it has hegemonic implications for physical education praxis in African schools.

Preservice teachers' conceptions of teaching within sport education and multi-activity units

“…Despite the fact that most PTs in the study preferred teaching, and believed their pupils preferred being taught, Sport Education, significantly, they, like Shehu (1998), did not advocate dumping the Multi-activity model altogether. Even though they had to overcome the more traditional model's structural and cultural disadvantages, PTs still believed it contributed to their pupils' achievement.…”

“…For example, Shehu (1998) argued that Sport Education was really an 'ideological apparatus for the reproduction of a culture, the laissez-faire of competitive capitalism in the playground' (p. 232).…”

Developing Physical Education as a 'Connective Specialism': Is Sport Education the Answer?

“…It can be transformed through young people acquiring the skills of a critical consumer of sport and of the many varied products of the sport industry (p. 384) we question the association of critical consumerism with transformation. As Shehu (1998) highlighted, there is a conservatism inherent in Sport Education as it has been developed to date. It is a development that has essentially celebrated, and sought to 'initiate' students into the established, dominant form of sport in 'the real world'.…”

Physical Education as a Subject in France (School Curriculum, Policies and Discourse): The Body and the Metaphors of the Engine--Elements Used in the Analysis of a Power and Control System during the Second Industrial Revolution

“…However, it seems that Sport Education and Society has no place for this field of research into physical and sports education. Recently, work has appeared on Physical Education in Hong Kong (Shuttleworth & Chan Wan-Ka (1998) and in Africa (Shehu, 1996) but none on France.…”