Embodiment in physical education: a step toward a unifying framework

Embodiment has gained increasing attention within physical education over the past decades. Yet, research continues to show that concepts, ideas, and practices related to embodiment remain broad, interdisciplinary, and difficult to operationalise and pin down. In response, this article offers a phenomenological framework formulated by Lanei Rodemeyer that outlines different levels of embodiment, ranging from social and discursive processes and experiences to rudimentary sensorial inputs. By applying this framework analytically to a constructed vignette, and suggesting the ways in which it is applicable to physical education, the article aims to demonstrate the ways in which existing practices and research may already be operating within an embodied paradigm. This article argues that the best way to approach embodiment is to develop a coherent conceptual apparatus that helps teachers describe and refine their current practice, rather than by proposing multiple new implementations to change it.