Sport as social formation and specialist education: discursive and ritualistic aspects of physical education

This article is based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out at two Danish sports colleges that aim to educate voluntary leaders and elite coaches respectively. Methodologically, a model of analysis is built through supplementing Foucault's concept ‘orders of discourse’ with Robert Wuthnow's studies of not only written and spoken but also ritualistic contributions to discourses. Using this model, the analysis of the formally written purposes and daily words used at the colleges shows two orders of discourse about sport as social formation and sport as specialist education, which are based in historically and ideologically different traditions. Moreover, the analysis shows that the present-day students contribute to the different discourses but also ignore or resist them as active individuals. This makes it relevant to inquire into the participants’ practices and experiences with the help of ethnographic studies of rituals. The analysis of the courses as rituals contributes to our understanding of physical education by pointing at an interesting duality. On the one hand, different traditions (and discourses) are reproduced through the education of leaders and coaches to Danish sports clubs, and on the other hand, both groups of students form social relations and go through a transformative process. To Conclude, concepts such as ‘formative education’ will be suggested to bridge rather than ideologically polarize our understanding of formative and educational potentials of physical education today.