Mapping the discourses of physical education: articulating a female tradition

Through an analysis of policy documents, archival material, interviews and journal articles, this paper attempts to map those discourses which have become an important part of the meanings and practices that make up the physical education curriculum in New South Wales, Australia, from 1880 to 1980. It uses a feminist perspective to argue that the dominance of a masculine agenda, built around organized sport and the human movement sciences, has marginalized other pedagogies and other forms of physical activity, such as gymnastics and dance, which are more likely to be associated with women. Physical education possesses characteristics which make it a particularly potent site within education for discourses about the body. When organized sports dominate the curriculum, the valuing of individual achievement through aggressive competition, within a context of male dominance, becomes the normative standard. This typically works against women's and girls’ participation in physical education and physical activity; it also contributes to the (re)production of notions of women being ‘weaker’ and ‘lacking’ in relation to male superior strength and skill. There has been a marked and continuing absence of oppositional discourses in Australian physical education to contest the dominance of the masculine tradition. Contestation has been framed primarily within liberal feminist or ‘equal opportunity’ discourses which rarely challenge the dominant forms of physical education. Further analyses using feminist perspectives are required to challenge existing curricula.