'It's Only the Sissies …': Analysis of Teaching and Learning Processes in Physical Education: A Contribution to the Hidden Curriculum

The article is a discussion and an analysis of an event observed in a critical classroom study on teaching and learning in physical education. It demonstrates how sociocultural discourses are embedded in children's and teachers' discursive practices [Fairclough (1992) Discourse and Social Change (Cambridge, Polity Press)] in the classroom, how discourses of physical education and discourses of gender relations are connected, and how these construct and are constructed by the social structures of the physical education lesson, and influence students' learning. Using the notion of situated learning [Lave & Wenger (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press); Wenger (1998) Community of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)], the paper analyses how discourses in the physical education setting influence children's learning processes, and points to the different meanings the discursive practices observed in the classroom have for the girls as compared to the boys. This analysis allows for some concluding comments on learning and the hidden curriculum in physical education.