Physical Education as porn!

Background: This paper offers critical commentary on the culture of ‘performativity’ that has dominated educational discourse over the last 20 years, affecting the way in which researchers, teachers, pupils and parents think and act toward Physical Education and sport (PESP) in schools. It is a culture that, in the UK, is likely to intensify in the years ahead given Liberal-Conservative (Lib-Con) Government commitments to privatisation of public services, privileging the consumer, fostering greater diversity of provision, and freeing formal education of State and producer regulation. Purpose: To foster debate and reflection within the profession as to what Physical Education is for, what should be its guiding principles, and who should decide these things. Design: The paper offers informed polemic grounded in analyses of policy documents and personal research on Physical Education and Health over the last 20 or so years. Analyses: The paper re-stakes a claim for the importance of sociology in educational analysis and policy development, and the rediscovery of debate around their guiding principles. It was, after all, Durkheim Citation(1956) who regarded as ‘the prime postulate of all pedagogical speculation that education is an eminently social thing in its origins as in its functions, and that, therefore, pedagogy depends on sociology more closely than any other science’ (Durkheim Citation1971, 91). How ironic, then, that, since the 1980s, the capacity of sociology to influence pedagogy has been so marginal, at a time when it has had so much to say. The paper speculates as to why this dislocation has occurred and with what consequences for what we know about teaching and how children learn and think about their body's value and worth. Conclusion: If performative culture is allowed to configure and define Physical Education, then it is likely to cultivate principles of thought and action somewhat akin to those defining Porn. If sociology or education research is to guide policy and practice in education away from the ‘pornification of PE’ (sic) it has to consider: what are the new rules of engagement between pedagogy and sociology?; how and where are the voices of sociologists, pedagogues and researchers to be heard? How are closer allegiances between formal Education, Government and Media to be forged?