The Ethical Life of Educational Policy: Physical Education Teachers as Phronimoi

This paper explores the ethical dimension of educational policy. Policy‐as‐practice scholarship tends to emphasize teachers as purposeful agents involved in problem‐solving and the creative interpretation and reassembling of educational discourses. Drawing from a 7‐month ethnographic fieldwork with two Physical Education teachers at a New Zealand high school, I propose a complementary focus on teachers as phronimoi: persons who exercise phronesis (“practical judgment”) while navigating situational constraints, through ordinary moments of ethical deliberation and meaningful action.