The poverty of theory: class configurations in the discourse of Physical Education and Health (PEH)

Background: At the heart of this polemic1 1. This is a modified version of a paper presented to the Physical Education UK Special Interest Group, British Educational Research Conference, University of Warwick, 6–9 September 2006. The paper was intended as a provocative challenge to thinking on the practices, purposes and achievements of PE in schools, and as a stimulus to debate on the capacities of research in physical education to help us understand these things. lies the view that contemporary research in PE and Health (PEH) has largely overlooked one of the key determinants of social behaviour, social class and its expression in and outside schools; an omission that has quite serious consequences for how we (researchers and teachers) think about and conceptualise the purposes of PE in schools and what it can, and can not, achieve. Purpose: Class matters we argue, and unless it is returned to centre stage in research and professionals debate in PEH we are unlikely to achieve either balanced or complex understandings of what PEH is for, what achievements and ‘abilities’ are to be valued and what we as researchers and teachers can reasonably be expected to achieve.