To Örebro University

Background: Despite increasing support for models in physical education, ambiguity exists concerning the role of teachers in the implementation of models. Very generally, some scholarship seems to suggest that teachers should work as technicians and use models in an instrumental manner. Other scholarship suggests that teachers should use models in ways that are responsive to the contexts in which they are working. This suggestion positions teachers more as craftspeople. Ambiguity is problematic given that teachers have been identified as 'key players' when it comes to the implementation of models. How teachers are positioned in research may have a significant impact on further research and pedagogical practices.

Purpose: This paper has two specific aims. First, we aim to provide a detailed map of how scholars have positioned teachers within physical education models literature. Second, we aim to provide a reinterpretation of our findings using Deweyan theory.

Data production: The scoping review conducted here is based on the framework provided by Arksey and O'Malley [2005. "Scoping Studies: Towards a Methodological Framework." International Journal of Social Research Methodology 8 (1): 19-32]. It involved: (1) the development of a research question which was: in which ways does PE models literature position teachers? (2) the identification of potentially relevant literature through searches of the Web of Science, SPORT Discus and Google Scholar databases. The search terms used were: 'Physical education' AND 'Models-based practice;' OR; 'Pedagogical model;' OR; 'Instructional model;' OR; 'Curriculum model;' OR; 'Model;' OR; 'Teacher,' and literature needed to be published between 2010 and 2021 in English, (3) the selection of literature for the review. This occurred as an iterative process that involved going back and forth between the potentially relevant literature and our research question, (4) charting of the literature, done through inductive thematic analysis. This involved a close inspection of the included texts and the identification of recurring types of positioning in the corpus, and (5) a theoretical reinterpretation of teacher positioning achieved in models scholarship.

Findings: In the physical education scholarship on pedagogical models, teachers are positioned as: (1) resistant to using models; (2) incapable of using models correctly; (3) mechanical reproducers of models; (4) struggling implementers of models; (5) needing models to change their ordinary practices; (6) capable of using models correctly with support; (7) adapters of models, and (8) collaborators with researchers when implementing models.

Discussion: Three issues are raised for discussion. The first relates to the potential disempowerment of teachers achieved by models. The second relates to the relationship between teachers and researchers. The third relates to how models themselves are conceived.

Conclusion: The paper is concluded with two general reflections that follow from the issues raised in the discussion.

Physical education (PE) has significant potential to shape how young people experience their own and others’ bodies. This potential has not always been realized in positive ways and some research suggests that experiences in PE have contributed to young people’s dissatisfaction with their appearances. The broad aim of this review is to provide a comprehensive understanding of body image as a pedagogical issue within PE. A narrative approach to the review is adopted that enables us to summarize, compare, explain and interpret various types of research relevant to our aim. From the databases ERIC, SCOPUS and PsycInfo, 25 articles were identified that deal with either body image in typical PE lessons or researcher-led attempts to influence students’ body image (what we have termed ‘pedagogic interventions’). Main findings are that: (1) PE has been presented as both part of the cause and a potential site of intervention to the problem of negative body image; (2) Researchers have based pedagogic interventions on four types of guiding principles; and (3) Researchers have made an array of recommendations for practitioners relating to gender, time, professional development and the characteristics of the pedagogical interventions. Findings are discussed in relation to broader research on body image in society and in PE with a focus on how the findings might inform further scientific practice.

Physical contact between teachers and students in physical education (PE) has been a troubling, complex and unsolved issue. Research has shown that PE teachers struggle with high levels of fear, insecurity and anxiety when it comes to physical contact with students. However, most of the research conducted so far has focused on a few countries and in regard to the dominant no-touch societal discourse related to sexual connotations. Research from other countries on PE-related touch and other non-sexual physical contact topics is still missing from the literature. This paper aims to explore touch within the PE arena in Argentina and France. Data were generated with a group of eight PE teachers, four from France and four from Argentina. Results suggest that even though teachers were well aware of the widely spread discourse regarding sexual harassment, they discussed the concerns of touch in PE in different ways. Touch was considered necessary for both emotional support and the avoidance and treatment of injuries. In some cases, teachers were concerned about the admissibility of touch involving students with religious beliefs, and some acts of violence. The conclusions of this study reveal a shift in the ‘risks’ surrounding teacher-student physical contact, and the less-discussed presence of risks other than those related to sexual implications when considering other countries. The conclusions also revolved around the changes of PE teachers’ professional subjectivities over the last few decades.

Covid-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020, and the world has witnessed significant changes since then. Spain has been forced to go into extreme lockdown, cancelling all school classes and outdoor activities for children, which may have significant consequences on young people. This paper explores how young children have experienced lockdown as a consequence of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and what they think about their future lives after Covid-19. Data were collected from 73 students aged from 7 to 9 years old, using participant-produced drawings and short questions with children’s and parents’ descriptive comments. We used a children’s rights perspective and the Freirean approach of a pedagogy of love and hope to analyse the data. Results suggest that participants have been through significant changes in their routines, and that what they miss most from their lives before Covid-19 is playing outdoors with their friends and visiting their grandparents. To our knowledge, this paper is the first of its kind in investigating how the Covid-19 pandemic has influenced the ways that children lived during pandemic and its possible implications for their futures.

Background: Physical education(PE) has been traditionally considered as a practical and ‘hands-on’ subject in schools, where close proximity and physical contact is common, particularly in Spain which has a high proximity culture. Significantly, the delivery of PE has changed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and this brings significant consequences for pre-service PE teachers.

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to explore the changes of PE during Covid-19 and the effects on pre-service teachers.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were used to produce data with a group of 12 pre-service PE teachers from Spain (four women and eight men) who were undertaking their practicum in PE when the Covid-19 lockdown was imposed in Spain [14 March 2020]. Dredging was used as an analytical technique to identify the relations and affects that comprised assemblages of bodies, things and social formations.

Findings: Results suggest that pre-service teachers are having difficulties in re-assembling PE in the age of Covid-19, and that this produces the affects of precarity, fear and insecurity. Furthermore, the PE re-assemblage also results in a shift of pedagogical affects. The participants particularly struggled to think on a PE assemblage that does not include the affect of physical encounters with their students. The new assemblage of PE also included encounters with digital technologies, which allowed for particular openings and closings for a re-alignment into the shifted PE.

Conclusions: Pre-service teachers were unfamiliar with the way the PE assemblage has shifted, and this shifting affected their ability to produce affects in the ‘new PE’. The new PE assemblage leads to a significant change in the culture of PE teaching in Spain, where physical contact between teachers and students was previously normal and taken for granted.

Sweden received worldwide attention for its approach to managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, throughout the pandemic, Sweden was one of the few countries that did not implement any lockdown measures. This meant that primary schools remained open and classes proceeded as usual, including the delivery of physical education (PE). This paper explores PE teachers’ perceptions of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Swedish PE. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with seven PE teachers. Results suggest that teaching PE during COVID-19 has led to disparate challenges and changes for teachers, including modifications in context, content, roles and responsibilities, as well as the handling of issues concerning physical contact and proximity among students and teachers. The conclusions of this study reveal that in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the parameters of PE in Sweden are changing more rapidly now than ever before. Understanding how the pandemic has impacted the subject of PE and its delivery might create opportunities for further discussions, possible solutions and subsequent necessary adjustments in dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 situation.

This paper provides in-depth knowledge into young girls' learning processes in relation to physical activity, diet/nutrition and body image. Data were generated from interviews with 49 girls (age 13-15) in England. The practical epistemological analysis technique was used to explore young people as both producers and consumers, or prosumers, of content and knowledge. The data illustrate that adolescent girls navigate two interrelated health-related paradoxes within publicly private spaces: (i) skinny fat and (ii) naturally fake. Skinny fat refers to how participation in social media represents a continuous struggle of becoming skinny, but at the same time not trying too hard to become too skinny. Naturally fake refers to how having a 'natural' look is highly valued, but equally, it is acceptable to be 'fake'. Overall, adolescent girls are competent users of social media, who are able to navigate the complexity of the medium and its contents. At the same time, the adolescent girls sometimes found themselves, unintentionally, exposed to risks (e.g. bullying or body dysmorphia), particularly when social media was experienced publicly in a temporal order, connected to the past or present, and without control of potential future effects and impacts. Relevant adults should acknowledge young people's vast competence of life on social media and further empower young people to self-regulate their learning through social media, and in ways that help them to learn from experiences about their health and bodies to shape future actions.

Early career academics (ECAs) working in neoliberal universities have been recognized as a vulnerable group who experience anxiety, uncertainty, exhaustion, stress, frustration, insomnia, shame and guilt. These feelings are often intensified among academics from developing countries, such as Argentina. Using the theoretical ideas of liquid subjectivities, risk and uncertainty, this paper aims to explore what we experienced while transitioning from undergraduate students to ECAs in the field of Physical Education (PE). Collective biographies were used as a method for data collection, and three main themes were constructed from the data in relation to power relations, gender and liquid subjectivities from the transition from students to ECAs. The paper concludes by highlighting the positive side of working in academia with the hope that working conditions will be improved for the next generation of ECAs in PE.

Bodies have been claimed to be an 'absent presence' and touch 'risky business' in physical education (PE). We have now witnessed how these claims are intensified in pandemic times of Covid-19, particularly in countries that have adopted extreme lockdown measures. This paper explores how PE practices have become 'touchless' and bodies absent using the theoretical concepts of risk and assemblage. The paper focusses on a group of pre-service PE teachers who were keen on undertaking their PE practicum experience and who were forced to switch to online mode. Data were collected through participant-produced drawings and comments on the drawings. Results suggest that the pre-service teachers are experiencing a mix of emotions during this time, miss the physical contact with students and believe the subject of PE is losing its identity as a consequence of the current situation. The conclusions of this study reveal a shift in the way that bodies are being constituted as assemblages now, and the possibility that pre-service teachers are missing out on an important aspect of their practicum experiences because of the lack of direct contact with students. We also wonder if pre-service teacher education programmes should put more emphasis on better preparing the students to teach online, and what will be the long-term consequences in the teaching of PE because of the current Covid-19 pandemic situation.