Research and governance in Physical Education

Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Glamorgan, 14-17 September 2005 – Physical education and sport pedagogy session

Håkan Larsson

Stockholm Institute of Education and

The Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, Stockholm

PO Box 5626

S-114 86 Stockholm

Sweden

++46-8-737 57 65

++46-73-782 24 36

Abstract

Research on the subject physical education has for a long time been conspicuous by its absence in Sweden. Just after the turn of the millennium, however, the picture has radically changed. Several large studies have been carried out. This occurs parallel to a public questioning of the role of the subject – not the least among researchers. Inspired by the works of Michel Foucault, this course of events is in this paper seen as expressions of a network of power/knowledge relation that constitute new kinds of subjectivity among those who are involved in the subject. Using Foucauldian discourse analysis the aim of the paper is to explore the relation between scholarly work on physical education and the governance of the subject. The motive for using such an approach is to create a critical discussion on the implications with research on the subject. The analysis indicate that new kinds of research, i.e. new questions and new approaches, go hand in hand with changes in practices of governance. The talk about a ‘crisis’ in the subject, opens up for ‘experts’ on the subject to prescribe certain issues that the subject ‘needs’ to improve on in order to match the expectations.

Key words: physical education, research, governance, crisis discourse, experts

Introduction

During the last decades of the 20th century, Swedish educational research on the body and movement culture primarily focused on children’s and youth sport during leisure time. Research on Physical Education in school occurred only sporadically. The new millennium meant a radical change. Multi-disciplinary large-scale projects, turning over several million SEK each and one of them, were formed. In addition, a number of PhD theses on Physical Education has been published (Karlefors 2002, Carli 2004, Lundquist Wanneberg 2004, Swartling Widerberg 2004, Sandahl 2005). Apparently, the interest for exploring the subejct of Physical Education has grown considerably over the last couple of years. The question is, how are we to understand this novel interest for Physical Education among Swedish researchers? What is to be accomplished by the research?

Of importance is to note that the name of the subject has changed at a number of occasions over the last century, the last time in 1994 to idrott och hälsa [sport and health]. This change of name might in some way mirror changes within the subject that opens up a space for struggle over authority and legitimacy in issues dealing with, for instance, the intention with the subject, its content and its ways of teaching. The change of name also went hand in hand with more comprehensive changes within the Swedish school system, such as an increased decentralisation and steering by goals (cp. Carlgren & Marton 2000).

The French philosopher Michel Foucault has dealt with the relation between knowledge production and governance. In several large studies, Foucault outlines how modern modes of governance at the same time both presuppose and generate knowledge. The purpose with this paper is to put knowledge production on the subject of Physical Education in Sweden in relation to the attempts to govern the subject. What function has research in relation to governance as far as Physical Education in Sweden is concerned? What perspectives own legitimacy in this work for change, and what groups are able to formulate authoritative and legitimate statements about the state and status of the subject?

The reasons for dealing with this issue are several; firstly, the reasons for having physical education as a subject in school seems to be obscure, as are questions about what pupils are expected to learn in the subject, how this knowledge is supposed to be taught to the pupils and, last but not least, how it is to be assessed and marked? Secondly, I have myself taken part in two of the previously mentioned large-scale projects. Within this work I have had the opportunity to formulate my own statements about the state and status of Physical Education, and market my own view on the subject (see Larsson & Redelius 2004).

In the following section, I will try to sketch the analytical tools that Michel Foucault has provided us with when it comes to analyses of power/knowledge relations, and also to relate to a similar paper on the governance of physical education through a ‘crisis discourse’ by Thorpe (2003). Foucault’s and Thorpe’s analytical approach underlie my own attempt to analyse a similar talk on “crisis” in the subject in Sweden. The paper is concluded by an attempt to re-contextualise the new research in times of changes within Physical Education and the power/knowledge relations that constitute views and statements concerning this subject.

Foucault: power/knowledge relations

To delimit the questions posed by Foucault, one has to transgress the boundaries of established scientific disciplines and methods. His studies revolve around the relation between a) ways of knowing and the conditions of knowledge; b) governance and the attempts to govern at a distance; and c) subjectivity and an ethics of the self. The focal point in these studies is, as I see it, how the conditions of subjectivity is formed within networks of power/knowledge relations. In order to understand people, activities, change etc., we need to understand the relations between the forms of knowing and the modes of governance in a specific context.

Many have expressed difficulty with grasping Foucault’s intentions since he gradually displaced his starting points and his analytical approach. This is however significant to his works. His approach is not about establishing anything “for good”, which traditionally has been the role of scientific studies, but rather to keep open for new and exceeding thoughts and approaches. This is particularly important in relation to man’s study of his own subjectivity, not the least how research constitutes new kinds of subjectivity. Scientific researchers need to know how their own work is embedded in networks of power/knowledge relations, thus research is seen as a social activity, situated in relation to the attempts to govern certain social arenas.

Subjectivity, to begin with that concept, is used as an alternative to concepts such as identity, self-image and the like. The latter concepts can be interpreted as rather static and objectifying. In relation to that, subjectivity is to be regarded as a continuous process, or practice, which signifies the thinking and acting person’s possibilities to reflect on him- or herself, on his or her own actions and the social context where he or she is situated. Such subjectivity Foucault sees as historically constituted. Every individual’s personal history is conflated to historical change in a larger perspective, even though the effects of historical events must be studied locally. Every period has its own kinds of subjectivity; either they are about man as God’s sheep, the children of Nature or citizens of Society. Every person’s subjectivity is constituted in those discourses that she engages in. By the term discourse,Foucault means several things; discourse designates the statements that are pronounced in a certain context and the relations between certain statements; it also designates the regulatory power of particular statements within that specific context. Discourse is, thus, the name of a kind of social and historical grammar, or ways of reasoning within a certain context, which makes what is said intelligible (cp. Foucault 1993). The term discourse is essential in relation to Foucault’s use of another term: subject. By subject, Foucault means a position where a person is subjected to certain discursive regularities, from which he or she might also transgress the boundaries of those discourses. In that sense, the meaning of ‘subject’ is twofold – and simultaneous, on the one hand it designates something that is subjugated to something or someone; on the other it designates an actor in a social and historical setting (Foucault 1982).

The discursive conditions of a subject must be understood in a network of power/knowledge relations. Different forms of knowing owns legitimacy and authority in a social context at the same time as those forms of knowing constitute ways of acting upon others (or ways of government). Forms of knowing are about the more or less reflected things that we ‘know’ – or take for granted – when we orientate and act in the social world. Modes of government are about different ways of influencing people. Force is of course a form of influence, but a form that did not interest Foucault, since force is an influence from a subject to an object. The kind of influence that interested Foucault was how it is designed as a way of subjectification; how actions upon others’ actions form subjectivity, a certain way op relating to oneself and others in a certain situation. The links between modes of government and forms of knowing, Foucault calls governmentalities (Foucault 1991). Relevant for this study is, for example, what kinds of knowledge that are brought to function as arguments in the attempts to govern physical education.

One of the consequences that is tied to Foucault’s approach, is the way scholarly work can be critical. One side of research that is conventionally stressed is its ability to produce true statements, i.e. valid and reliable, about ‘the real world’. In addition, yet another dimension in scientific research is put to the forefront, namely problematizing and perspectivizing. Research as a social phenomenon is in this sense not only about producing valid and reliable statements about reality, but also to problematize our ideas about reality and making it susceptible for new perspectives. How are we, then, to relate to these insights? Or to put it more precise: what is the meaning of being critical? Do we have to discard the scientific claim of truth as being pure ideology? No, that would be a rash conclusion. All knowing is not find faulting, but it can be. Foucault’s approach is, for this reason, not about making revolution against scientific research, or against all efforts to govern for that matter, but always to keep open for new ways of understanding those power/knowledge relations that constitute subjectivity and a critical understanding of a certain practice. Critique aims at elucidating the implication for knowledge production from the point of view of governance. Against this background, this paper aims at elucidating those power/knowledge relations that constitute research on physical education in the Swedish school and the truth claims that owns authority and legitimacy in the discourse on physical education in Sweden.

Crisis discourse in physical education

In an article called Crisis Discourse in Physical Education and the Laugh of Michel Foucault, Stephen Thorpe (2003) analyses the use of ‘crisis discourse’ in physical education in the English-speaking world. Already in 1990, two well-known researchers published a text called Physical Education, Curriculum and Culture: Critical Issues in the Contemporary Crisis(my emphasis), and during 1991 they organised a workshop on the theme ‘Australian Physical Education in Crisis’ (my emphasis) at DeakinUniversity. One of the two researchers, David Kirk, later claimed that the ‘crisis’ that characterised the subject at that time, first and foremost was of a discursive kind, and was about a ‘lack of identity’. Other researchers suggested that it was about a de-professionalisation and proletarisation of the physical education teachers, and a marginalisation of the subject in school concerning time allocation and content. Thorpe notes that a lot of work, since then, has been devoted to sorting out what this alleged crisis is about and how it is possible to ‘solve’ it. For his own part, Thorpe chooses another analytical pathway. He asks himself how it is possible for the crisis discourse in physical education to be meaningful. Since Thorpe leans on Foucault, he sees ‘crisis discourse’ as a linking together of a certain mode of government to a certain form of knowing. The attempts to influence change within the subject are grounded in certain truth claims that can be expressed by ‘experts’:

Contemporary … practices of acting on (shaping) the actions of others may be made possible and facilitated by ‘truth’-claims mobilised within crisis discourse … crisis discourse in Physical Education might more usefully be understood as an artefact of the activities and practices of diverse and often competing forms of ‘expertise’ – those individuals and groups in society imbued with what Rob Watts (1993/1994) called the power to mean … (Thorpe 2003, p. 133).

Thorpe claims that ‘crisis discourse’ can not be seen as an un-disputed fact, but rather as an instrument of change, and for certain groups of experts to appropriate the authority to diagnose the condition of physical education, and the legitimacy to suggest changes within the subject. Let me quote Thorpe in detail:

It follows from this perspective that such ‘expertise’ tends to be self-legitimating in the way it claims scholarly and scientific authority via its capacity to tell the ‘truths’ of ‘Physical-Education-in-crisis’, resulting in a self-reproducing intensification of processes of intellectually grounded knowledge about Physical Education, and subsequent attempts to apply this knowledge in the quest for certainty into, and interactions within, this field … ‘Knowledges’ produced within crisis discourse are inevitably, in this sense, often constituted by attempts to colonise the unruly, unknowable future via the practices and activities of ‘expertise’ (ibid).

Further, Thorpe means that one should proceed with caution when claiming that ‘crisis discourse’ in physical education merely is a naming of something that already exists, in order to force ones own discursive logic on the subject. What we ought to draw our attention to is thus not only why ‘crisis discourse’ is expressed, but also its effects: “In other words, crisis discourse is perhaps better read, not as symptomatic of certain states in and of Physical Education so much as shifting alliances of views about Physical Education” (Thorpe 2003, p. 134). ‘Crisis discourse’ in physical education, and the talk about an identity crisis, can be seen as an attempt to change the identity of the subject, rather than as a ‘real’ identity crisis. In Foucault’s sense, one can talk about an attempt to fashion a new subjectivity among physical education teachers. The alleged crisis is not ‘discovered’ among the teachers, but rather ‘invented’ among the researchers.

What, then, makes it possible for experts to produce ‘crisis discourse’ in physical education? As Thorpe illustrates the situation in Australia, an anxiety for young people to be less physically active, hence less physically fit, than previous generations, is noticed. This would be detrimental for Australia’s ability to produce elite sports persons. It would also constitute a great health threat to the rising generation. Some contributions to the discussion talk about Australians as ‘couch-potatoes’. It is said that young people sit too much in front of TV-sets and computer screens instead of being physically active, preferably outdoors. In 1992, a Senate Standing Committee published a report stating that “[…] the quality and content of physical education Australia-wide, has declined as a result of such things as:

  • the ‘crowded curriculum’ in both primary and secondary schools;
  • the inclusion of physical education under the broad umbrella of health education;
  • a lack of a coherent physical education policy in any State or Territory;
  • the devolution of decision making to local school councils;
  • a lack of defined and agreed outcomes for physical education courses compared to other areas of the curriculum;
  • a reduction on the number of specialist physical education teachers, particularly in primary schools, and the limited preparation of generalist teachers for physical education;
  • a lack of State and Territory education departmental support for teachers supervising physical education;
  • a confusion between what is physical education, what is sport education and what is school sport; and
  • the use of AUSSIE SPORT and associated sporting programs to justify the withdrawal of physical education from schools (Senate Standing Committee, 1992, p. xiii, quoted in Thorpe 2003, p. 143).

Thorpe’s conclusion is that this long list of expressions of decline within the subject of physical education is rather to be seen as an attempt to change the view on the subject, among physical education teachers and others. This also gives different groups of experts the opportunity to state the directions for the change that is ‘needed’.

What is problematic about Thorpe’s article is that it is not easy to know on what selection his description is grounded in. Similar critique has been presented towards Foucault’s works. What current interest, or what influence, has the issue of ‘crisis discourse’ in the debate over physical education, and in research on physical education, in Australia? Thorpe adopts a defensive strategy:

I wish to warn here that I am not arguing that all who engaged in these discourses belonged to this category; … Nor do I wish to be read as having reductively suggested crisis discourse was mobilised at this time solely as a result of national intent of a certain group of critical scholars (Thorpe 2003, p. 132).

The question about what dignity we ought to give ‘crisis discourse’ in a certain context is, thus, almost a question for those individuals and groups that are involved in this context.

Reading Thorpe’s article, I became embarrassingly aware about my own role as an ‘expert’ and a ‘truth-teller’ in relation to the subject of physical education in the wake of the publishing and receiving of the reportMellan nytta och nöje. Bilder av ämnet idrott och hälsa (Between use and pleasure. Images of the subject of physical education) in the summer of 2004. But before I return to this issue, let me, a bit more systematically, illustrate the discourse on physical education and its state of health in Sweden.

Research on physical education

In the following section, I will summarize three studies on physical education in Sweden, namely Yngve Carlsten’s survey study in 1989, the Swedish National Agency for Education’s national evaluation of the subject in 1992-1993, and the Swedish Sports Confederation’s survey study in 1996. Which questions are at the forefront in these studies, and from what perspective are they put?