David H' K' Brown

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A Multi-dimensional Approach to Change with
regards to training teachers for physical
education and physical activity?

• David H. K. Brown
• (With Andrew C. Sparkes)
• Qualitative Research Unit
• School of Sport and Health Sciences
• University of Exeter

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Introduction On gaining a sense of perspective

• In this talk, I will make the case for an
  embodied multidimensional approach to respond to
  the challenge of changing social relations in our
  pedagogic actions as teachers and coaches. My
  main example is gender but the ideas expressed
  here are not limited to this. Three complimentary
  but theoretically distinctive dimensions are
  introduced as part of a multi-stage process of
  change, the development of
• Intellectual resources
• Practical dispositional resources or habitus
• Identity narrative resources
• In order to achieve this the importance of
  developing socially safe pedagogic spaces is also
  emphasized. These spaces it will be argued can be
  fostered through the focused use of
  sociologically reflexive journals, safe pedagogic
  practice spaces and the careful use of sharing
  identity stories from the field.

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A Few Caveats...

• Synthesis of existing ideas. Based on previous
  research
• An attempt to move towards a theoretically
  informed holistic and multidimensional solution.
• Based around structurationist, post dualist, or
  reflexive sociological perspectives.
• Built on assumption that teachers and coaches
  represent living links and that deep subjective
  change is the only realistic way of addressing
  this.
• Develops principle of strategic interventions in
  the process of educating teachers and coaches.

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Dimension One Developing Intellectual Resources
Connecting Abstract Knowledge and Subjective
Experience

• Abstract knowledge and the banking concept are
  based on rational action theory and are typically
  disembodied, personally disconnected and often
  alienating.
• Critical reflective strategies are important but
  alone remain insufficient - as they are still
  based on rational action theory.
• The use of sociologically reflexive journal based
  observation and writing can help to personalise
  an individuals position in relation to the world
  described by abstract knowledge.
• Reflexive sociological journal work must be
  interleaved with practical action that is
  stimulated by and reflected upon in journal.

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Example focus of the reflexive sociological
Journal

• Reflecting on named theories and how the
  individual is positioned in social space by them.
  These positions might also be considered in terms
  of the relations between gender and sexuality,
  ethnicity, class, ability, health and religion.
• For example, examining own beliefs concerning the
  nature/nurture debates in relation to gender,
  sexuality, ethnicity, race, class and ability
  through the writing of short auto-biographical
  pieces.
• Identifying gendered pedagogy in ones own
  practice and that of others.
• Identifying moments of gender resistance,
  domination / subordination, marginalisation,
  complicity and transformation in teaching styles,
  philosophies and classroom interaction, observed
  in ones own pupil and teaching experiences.
• Revisiting this writing as the PETE programme
  progresses

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The Journal as a safe intellectual space

• In deploying such an holistic approach, PETE
  programmes are using non-passive modes of
  knowledge transmission that centre upon (rather
  than place at the periphery) encouraging the
  individual student teacher to situate themselves
  in the broader social processes that shape or
  inform their sense of place in the world,
  according to their gender, class, ethnicity, age,
  ability, health and sexuality (amongst others).
• Perhaps equally important, this structured
  journal will give them a safe space in which to
  rehearse the application of this abstract
  knowledge as an intellectual resource for their
  actions as teachers.
• Personalised intellectual resources can also be
  used to open up understandings that lead to what
  practical resources are either present or absent
  in a given individual.

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A short example

• Connells text Masculinities (1995) provoked a
  significant reality shift for me. At the time
  of reading this work, I was on holiday from my
  job teaching PE, whilst studying part-time for an
  MPhil in education. Returning to work, I
  suddenly, became aware that I was teaching within
  a disarmingly taken-for-granted gender organized
  environment (the school and the subject of
  physical education). Moreover, characters
  represented in Connells life history work often
  reminded me of myself, and how I would
  unconsciously engage in masculine acts of
  'protest,' or 'resistance' against authority. Yet
  at the same time I complicitly defended the
  prevailing hegemonic masculine ideology and drew
  on the patriarchal dividend adherence to it can
  bring. I recognized myself in the stories of
  others who enjoyed the power of being in control
  and making things happen in their lives.
• It helped me to identify and link some of my
  feelings, relationships with others, tastes,
  dispositions, insecurities and view of the world
  to my 'remote' biography. I began to become more
  sensitive to the significance of my own (and
  others') social positioning Of my whiteness my
  mesomorphic body shape my Protestant English
  upper - working class upbringing and the
  constructedness of my heterosexuality. I also
  became more conscious of my current biography of
  having led an uncomfortable jock (see Messner
  Sabo, 1990) existence through school and college
  of being an 'authorized' part of the boys 'inner
  sanctum' (Brown, 1998) due to my 'useful' working
  class physicality. I began to realize why many of
  my performances of a competitive hegemonic
  masculinity in sport never came easily. I came to
  recognize the powerfully physical male influences
  of my father, godfather, grandfather, older
  cousins, two of my PE teachers and a cluster of
  male celebrity icons including Sylvester
  Stallone, Marvin Haggler, Bruce Lee, and Arnold
  Schwarzenegger. I realized that all of these men
  define themselves through being exemplars of
  masculine physicality. Slowly I began to
  remember, the degree of mimesis I engaged in, the
  'right' words, phrases, gestures, postures and
  physical practices, as well as those that were
  rejected out of hand as belonging to the
  feminized 'other.' Yet, I also remember that I
  never really felt I was able to achieve the
  'perfect' masculine 'way.' These recognitions
  happened gradually, and represented small
  epiphanies that prompted changes in my views
  towards the kind of man I was and how I might
  otherwise engage with the world. In spite of
  these intellectual changes - I discovered that
  'real' change was so much harder to achieve - the
  physical dispositions were so strongly engrained
  that they were (and still are?) serving as
  socialized 'instincts.'
• And so to teaching PE I began to realize that in
  spite of my newly found views and perspectives,
  my practices in the classroom and gym, especially
  when put under pressure, still drew heavily on my
  'traditional' working class habitus - so
  diligently practised and acquired for all those
  years. Looking around, I found that I was not the
  only one, men and women alike who I worked
  alongside, were teaching through their
  dispositions at least as much as their intellect.
  I realized that my work with children was
  contributing to the construction of their own
  gendered identities. I had become, for some
  children that PE teacher that I so learnt from,
  for others I had doubtless also become that PE
  teacher that they will recall, in years to come,
  as a typical macho stereotype. Either way,
  detailed performative aspects of my masculine
  social identity displays were being used by
  children both knowingly or otherwise, to position
  themselves through copying, modifying or
  rejecting.

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Dimension Two Habitus Resources Developing
Dispositions through Practice

• Habitus as constituted in practice and always
  orientated to practical functions (Bourdieu,
  1990)
• Practice breaks with intellectualist notion of
  rational action (Shilling, 2004) as it is often
  pre-reflective.
• Habitus as a generative grammar of possibilities
  for action that is conditioned from the
  structured practices of the social world.
• In Britain the field of PE and PETE tends to
  recruit particular types of (gendered) habitus
  for practical reasons.
• How / Can we change the gendered habitus of
  student teachers?

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Changing the habitus in theory

• As Joas (1996, p. 128) elaborates, the pragmatist
  conception of body schema suggests all human
  action is caught in the tension between
  unreflected habitual action and acts of
  creativity', and that new bursts of creativity
  are required when what has previously been a
  habitual, apparently automatic procedure of
  action is interrupted' and the world reveals
  itself to have shattered our unreflected
  expectations'. Such a situation involves not a
  temporary departure from habit, but a
  restructuring of action in response to crisis.
  This represents a creative achievement on the
  part of the actor, and institutes a new mode of
  acting' that may gradually be absorbed within
  unreflected routine' (ibid.).I suggest that we
  can derive three major modalities of action from
  this conception of body schema habit, crisis and
  creative revelation. (Shilling, 2004, p. 481)

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Changing the habitus A practical example

• One illustrative example worth considering here
  is that of the teaching Dance by male student
  physical educators (Keyworth Smith, 2003). For
  many men of white, English ethnicity, Dance is
  stereotypically (and I might emphasize
  misguidedly) an effeminate practice and through a
  lack of practical experience of the activity,
  they have a gap in their habitus resources that
  makes approaching the teaching of Dance
  problematic as they require schemes of
  dispositions that are quite simply 'alien' to
  them. Therefore to be asked to teach Dance may
  well come to represent a significant disruption
  to their intended habitual pedagogic actions and
  represent something of a crisis. Consequently,
  such experiences need to be provided that allow
  male student teachers from sporting backgrounds
  to deposit and modify the habitus sufficiently to
  establish dispositions that include the aesthetic
  dimensions of the body in movement that are
  relevant in dance culture. Importantly, this
  needs to continue in a repetitive practical
  setting until the various dispositional qualities
  become inscribed in the teachers bodies at which
  point they experience creative revelation at
  coming to realise they have acquired a new set of
  dispositional habitus resources that can be
  deployed without conscious effort (habitual
  action).

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Changing the habitus in practice and the need for
safe (pedagogic) spaces.

• Borne out of the recognition that from a
  sociological perspective very few learning
  environments are safe and free from the
  influences of social power relations...
• Social spaces that are created specifically to
  allow trainee teachers and coaches to practice
  socially innovative pedagogic behaviours without
  having to also negotiate significant social power
  relations with students, mentors, tutors or
  others - of course this an ideal!
• This allows for
• The repeated practice of news skills and
  strategies
• The making of these skills part of the natural
  choice before they are opened up to the real
  social world of the classroom or training ground.

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Dimension Three Narrative Resources Expanding
the Repertoire

• Newly acquired intellectual and practical
  resources might represent changes to the embodied
  self but how do we make sense of our changing
  self?
• Theoretically this involves addressing the
  narrative or storied dimension of self identity
• We draw our narrative resources from the
  subcultures we inhabit.
• The sub-culture of PE and sport often have quite
  limited narratives available.
• We need to provide student teachers with
  additional narrative resources, in order to
  support their changing intellectual and practical
  resources.

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Narrative resources in theory There is no reason
to assume a priori that people with similar
attributes will share common experiences of
social life, let alone be moved to common forms
and meanings of social action, unless they share
similar narrative identities and relational
settings. Bringing narrativity to identity thus
provides the conceptual sinews that produces a
tighter, more historically sensitive coupling
between social identity and agency. (Somers,
1994, p. 635) In telling a personal story about
myself I try to make explicit the meanings that
are implicit in the life I lead as I make sense
of the situation. Yet, how I make sense of myself
is shaped by the various kinds of story that have
been made available to me in the various
sub-cultures and cultures I inhabit. That is, I
cannot transcend my narrative resources in
telling a story about myself or in restorying
myself if I desired to do so. (Sparkes, 1999a,
p. 20)
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The example of gender From Control to
Contingency Narratives? The idealised gendered PE
teacher identity is constituted around a
sporting presentation of self as
stereotypically bound with maintaining a stable,
able and controlled masculinised or feminised
physical presence. This fixed narrative of the
disciplined, controlled self provides little help
for individuals to make sense of the very real
embodied contingencies that they must inevitably
face when teaching PE. These include, the aging
process (See Phoenix and Sparkes, 2006) A career
altering or ending injury (See Smith and Sparkes
2002) the absence of basic ability in a given
subject area And the perceived inability to
maintain classroom control in more challenging
school environments. All of these contingencies
can all radically undermine many gendered
identities and pedagogies which rely on the
centrality and visibility of their performing
bodies (Sparkes, 1999b, p. 172) and cause
identity dilemmas.
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Narrative resources in practice Sharing stories

• When describing the influences of the stories on
  their thinking, student teachers responded in
  various ways. While some felt the power of the
  stories was connected to its realness, others
  were able to read the story as if they were
  part of it, which encouraged deeper connections,
  different perspectives and the development of
  empathy towards the storyteller. the stories
  proved cathartic for those individuals who
  vividly recalled similar personal experiences
  around physical activity the stories encourages
  student teachers to consider the ways in which
  dominant practices around PE could exclude ,
  marginalize and alienate rather than include
  all children The stories also gave student
  teachers permission to talk about their own
  experiences, both positive and negative, around
  sport and PE. In this way, individuals developed
  further resonances with what the storyteller had
  to say. If student teachers could make emotional
  connections with the storyteller then their
  embodied reactions were more likely to enhance
  their empathy with the storyteller and recall of
  their own experiences. (Garrett, 2006, pp.
  348-350)

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Sharing stories A short example No my
background was totally single sex, at the start
it was slightly alien to me the concept, but I
totally came round to it. In my gymnastics and
dance especially, if I was teaching in an all
boys group for both of those I just wouldn't have
got the quality. ...I mean that worked on my
weakness, did a lot of work on gymnastics,
dancing, my mentor was a women she was relatively
strong in those areas... because I am quite
(big), I train a lot and things like that. I
don't know Perhaps they see PE for the very able
or you got to lift lots of weights or something.
The ideas that kids, get in their heads at that
ageThey thought it was quite funny to see a
Rugby player doing it, they thought it was
hilarious, but you know they seem to have
responded. (Derek)
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Summary

• I have suggested that the potential to challenge
  trainee PE teachers and coaches is largely
  dependent on the holistic development of
  intellectual, practical and narrative resources
  that student teachers /coaches bring to their
  professions. Taken in isolation, no single
  element suggested here is new. However the
  synthesis suggested here does I hope move
  discussion forwards a little in applying the
  assumption that a sociologically informed,
  multi-dimensional approach to subjective change
  is required, for any kind of social change that
  might result from teacher and coach education
  programmes to become a more realistic possibility.

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Thank you for Listening!
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Equal opportunities and inclusion Example prompts

• Intellectual Resources
• What do you know about the theories and policies
  of equal opportunities and inclusion? Can you
  give an example?
• Which elements do you agree/ disagree with? Can
  you give an example?
• How do you know it? Inevitably this theory and
  policy will position you - in your case how does
  it do this? Have you experienced the impact of
  these yourself? Can you give an example?
• Have you ever experienced marginalisation,
  exclusion or discrimination? How did this feel.
  Can you give an example?
• Have you ever failed physically at something and
  had to face this? Can you give an example?
• Are you moved to respond to equal opportunities
  or do you pay lip service to it in your
  teaching? Can you give an example?
• Practical Resources
• What practical resources do you feel you have for
  equal opportunities teaching? Can you give an
  example?
• What practical resources might you lack - can you
  identity them? Can you give specific examples?
• What space would be the safest space in which to
  acquire them? Can you give an describe this
  space?
• Are you in a position to set up this space?
• Narrative Resources
• Do you think you are known as an inclusive
  teacher or more of a competitive, meritocratic
  elitist type? Can you give an example?
• How would changing this professional philosophy
  and practice effect your identity as a teacher?
  Can you give an example?
• How would you re-story this identity it in the
  staff room, to the children and peers? Which
  identity is most valued? Can you give an example?
• Where would you get these storied resources from?

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