Critical Autobiography: 'Straightening' out dance education

In this exploratory paper I will tell and re-tell stories of becoming a male Physical Education (PE) and dance teacher/researcher. In so doing, this paper is a response to Sparkes' call for male PE teachers to engage in critical autobiographical work, as well as to Dowling Naess' urge for more PE teachers to publicise stories of their teacher socialisation. After detailing how my own exposure to dance during Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) blew the whistle on my near lifelong participation in Keen's 'Gender Game', I will draw upon the similar narrative accounts of nine male PE teachers to form what Richardson calls a 'Collective Story'. Highlighting that PE is often oppressive, patriarchal and sexist restricting the corporeal presentations of the bodies it contains, argument is made for more male PE teachers to reflect upon and subvert their 'gendered' stories of embodiment and professional socialisation.