Physical education as language: contributions of media education to the Brazilian curriculum

Important theoretical and cultural developments have enriched the field of Brazilian Physical Education (PE) since the 1990s, including the incorporation of debates surrounding critical pedagogies and Media Education (ME) in relation to/for/through technology. This phenomenon has influenced, and continues to influence, ways of teaching and thinking about the PE curriculum in Brazil, particularly with regard to recognising and incorporating technological and media mediations into PE practice and integrating PE into the Languages area, alongside Arts and the Portuguese and English Languages. This organisation seeks to expand students’ expressive capacities and their knowledge of diverse artistic, bodily, and linguistic manifestations. Accordingly, this paper aims to identify the contributions of ME to the understanding of PE as language within the Brazilian curriculum. The article is conceived as a conceptual and historical study and is grounded in media-educational practices developed in PE within the Brazilian context, focusing on: (1) innovative theoretical contributions for exploring PE from a Brazilian perspective; and (2) pedagogical approaches developed in the Brazilian context for teaching PE as language. It is argued that Brazilian PE, by remastering ME theory through Latin American cultural frameworks, seeks to overcome technological instrumentalism, grounded in: (1) a dialogical perspective between teacher and student; (2) attention to processes of cultural mediation and the constitution of the communicative ecosystem of teaching; and (3) the promotion of student authorship in media narratives as an expression of learning.