Pedagogies of Social Justice in Physical Education and Youth Sport

Shrehan Lynch, Jennifer L. Walton-Fisette, Carla Luguetti

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000551600
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Educazione fisica

This book offers an overview of contemporary debates in social justice and equity within Physical Education (PE) and Youth Sport (YS). It gives the reader clear direction on how to evaluate their current PE or YS program against current research and provides ideas for content, curriculum development, implementation, and pedagogical impact.

The book addresses key contemporary issues including healthism, sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, ableism and colonialism, and it highlights the importance of positionality and critical awareness on the part of the teacher, coach, or researcher. Presenting an array of case studies, practical examples, and thought-provoking questions, the book discusses equitable pedagogies and how they might be implemented, including in curriculum design and assessment.

Concise, and avoiding academic jargon, this is an invaluable guide for pre-service and in-service teachers, teacher educators, coaches, and educators, helping them to ensure that all students and young people are included within the PE and YS settings for which they are responsible.

Part I Understanding the need for social justice in Physical Education and Youth Sport

DOI: 10.4324/9781003162858-1

Chapter summaryIn this introduction to Part I, we invite you to consider the terms that we use throughout the book that make up the foundations of a socially just society, which are reflected in education and sport systems. Moreover, we share the theoretical lens in which the book is based upon, so that readers understand the perspective we take throughout the book and our rationale for transforming PE and YS in its current form in most Western countries.

Social justice terminology

Language is not static, and definitions and concepts change. However, at the time of writing this book, we are held to specific terms that support social justice in PE and YS. For a more in-depth and robust understanding on social justice concepts broadly in education, we recommend Sensoy and DiAngelo’s (2017) book Is everyone really equal?’. Throughout your reading of the book, you may find it helpful to refer to this chapter to remind yourself of the terms we use throughout. As former educators of track/athletics, the best definitions and visual examples we can share are linked to the idea of a running track and a 100-meter race.

Inequality – the unequal access where some people get more, and some get less. Those that get less are often from minority groups and ‘Others’ (e.g., women, gender non-conforming, disabled, people of color, etc.). Visual: The teacher has decided the content for the class and the teacher’s favorite student starts at the 50-meter line so he can finish the race first.

Equality – everyone gets the same distribution or assistance. Visual: The starting line in the 100m is the same for all, and everyone gets the same pair of trainers, in the same size to run it, despite the fact that some individuals are a different size and require different trainers entirely.

Equity – the funneling of resources to those that need it, some people use their advantages to help others, no one goes without; instead, tools are designed to support inequitable situations/circumstances and fairness for all groups to be successful. Visual: the starting line is different based on people’s experiences/resources. Also, those that have had the least experience/resources to be successful can start on the inside running track (shortest distance in comparison to the outside of the track).

Justice – legally fixing a system so that all parties involved get equal opportunities/assistance. Visual: Ensuring that those with a disability can still take part in the race and are included within PE and YS settings rather than segregated groups.

Liberation – replacing current systems of inequality that empower and give agency to people. Visual: Students decide where on the running track they want to go, or they do a different activity entirely and decide collectively as a class/group that they do not want to partake in track and instead engage in an invasion game or set up a charity walk to move and do social good.

Sociocultural issues – social and cultural issues, for example, gender inequality, xenophobia, colonialism, racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, ableism, climate change, poverty, children in care services, access to health care, and the obesity discourse.

Intersectionality – our identities are complex and intertwined, we do not live single-self lives, we can be both Black and a woman, serving two minority groups which affect how we experience the world and multiple forms of oppression. Moreover, not all women will have the same experiences, or in this example, not all Black women are synonymous.

Hidden curriculum – the untold or unimplied consequences of our teaching/coaching. For example, in gendered classes, segregating students by sex and gender can unintentionally tell students that they are not supposed to exercise together. Or, only celebrating Black history during one month of the year exemplifies that White history is taught all year round.

Critical consciousness – an in-depth understanding of how the world works, sociocultural issues, and injustices. Moreover, understanding the political and economic structures that make society up. Taking action and a sense of agency to such injustices are part of critical consciousness work.

Oppressed – the oppressed is dominated by the oppressor who receive inequitable resources/opportunities.

Oppressor – the oppressor is the agent that dominates and chooses the inequitable resources/opportunities for the oppressed.

Meritocracy – a deeply held belief that if you work hard, you deserve benefits and success, whereas if you do not or you make ‘poor’ life/work choices you do not deserve benefits/success.

Neoliberalism – a political agenda that promotes the deregulation of the free-market economic system, favoring a reduction in governmental spending through free-markets becoming privatized.

Critical pedagogy – the philosophy and teaching of critical topics and actions derived from critical theory that advocate for challenging the status quo, oppression, and societal norms for a more equitable world.

Social justice – being able to live in an equitable liberatory society where people have justice, and people are critically conscious to sociocultural issues and act against them.

Theoretical informants to the project

Our beliefs, scholarship, and pedagogical practices are inspired by critical pedagogy and feminist study scholars such as Paulo Freire (critical consciousness and praxis), bell hooks (dialogue and community), and Michel Foucault (surveillance, discipline, and regulation). Throughout this book you will see that our arguments are informed by these voices and perspectives. We also draw upon an array of PE and YS scholars that have a critical perspective to inform our thesis. The next section explores our main theoretical contributors and ideas in more detail for those unfamiliar with critical and feminist studies.

Neoliberalism and inequity

For readers that are new to a critical perspective, it is important to understand the need for social justice, specifically how inequality is created. Critically orientated scholars often share the idea that our society is plagued with inequality – the have’s and have nots. While the focus of this book is our education and community system that supports PE and YS, we are not isolated from society, culture, and media. Instead, we adopt norms shared within each of these spaces and can perpetuate them within our disciplines. As an example, our society surveils, disciplines, and regulates individuals based on ‘societal norms’. If you do not adhere to such norms, you are penalized by being cast out in society or potentially being incarcerated (Foucault, 1980). In schools, the same ideas are supported through sanctions including detentions/suspensions, having students line up in rows, and wearing uniforms that create sameness and remove individuality. Moreover, schools often praise decorum, speaking and acting in specific ways and following rules. Both sanctions and praises seek to regulate students to societies accepted standards.

Mass schooling is a microcosm of society as large class numbers create an efficient and profitable business for policymakers and taxpayers, which support a neoliberal ideology. Neoliberalism is the notion that the free market should be privatized for maximum economic profit. As an example, in the UK, the National Health Service is a publicly funded health care system, which everyone is entitled to. Those supporting a neoliberal agenda advocate for the National Health service to become privatized, which will increase profits, but decrease public regulations and access making it inequitable for minority groups as it is in the USA (among other issues not discussed here). Another example related to education in the USA and England is where some schools have become Charter schools or Academies. These institutions largely (and we generalize here) receive less public funding and consequently are not required to follow the same regulations as local authority schools. Some of these schools have been set up as business models for education to make profit, making teachers work long hours. Many educators in these schools cannot be unionized, moreover, student selection has known to be based on admission tests and interviews, which is viewed as a heavily biased and problematic process.

Because of increased privatization, societal norms include increased consumption and capitalism (the accumulation of wealth). As products of a system that promotes buying and consumption, the consumer buys into and creates items to be sold. This system creates a high level of inequality and it threatens democracy as we know it (Freire, 1987). The worker must provide for themselves and their family, but receives little in terms of remuneration, whereas the owner (ruling class) thrives in immense profit. Workers typically have little voice, choice, responsibility, or participation in decisions at a higher level.

Schools and communities in education and YS are like the wider society. We can view the worker as the educator or student/participant who have little autonomy over the decisions that are democratic. Educators often enjoy very little voice over the outcomes for learners and instead leaders or policy makers decide their curriculum, timetable, and schedule for learning. Systems are put in place to monitor students, participants, teachers, and coaches to ensure they are held accountable to outcomes. For example, to test knowledge, standardized tests show the efficiency of ‘learning’ and ‘teaching’ taken place. Whereas memory recall is the lowest form of learning and shows little understanding within subject areas. In YS, participants can be asked to perform specific skills to show their learning, whereas they might have cognitively learnt the skills, but may not be able to demonstrate it. Naturally, in both cases we will see learners resist by not bringing uniform, skive lessons/sessions or ‘misbehave’.

Along with critical scholars, we advocate for the use of pedagogies that forefront critical contents, which provide frameworks that actively challenge the status quo, but also bring together a holistic and humanized education and politics in opposition to domination and oppression. Specifically, the seminal work by Paulo Freire has illuminated our minds and by teaching about the inequities of free-market capitalism through critical consciousness.

Critical consciousness focuses on achieving an in-depth understanding of the world, allowing for the perception and exposure of social and political flaws; it also includes praxis, in other words acting against oppressive social injustices (Freire, 1987; hooks, 1994). Freire’s work emphasizes that critical consciousness is the important initial stage of transformation: a moment when we begin to think critically about ourselves and our identities in relation to our political circumstances. For example, we recognize subtle forms of oppression in our classrooms such as racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, and ableism. In that sense, critical consciousness shall lead learners and educators to take action and transform or negotiate their oppressed condition (Freire, 1987).

When the oppressed find the oppressor and become involved in the organized struggle for their liberation they begin to believe in themselves. ‘This discovery cannot be purely intellectual but must involve action; nor can it be limited to mere activism but must include serious reflection: only then will it be a praxis’ (Freire, 1987, p. 65).

Critical consciousness and praxis (a reflective approach to taking action) are fundamentally opposed to the banking concept of education, an authoritarian pedagogic practice whereby educators simply deposit information into their students, serving as an instrument of social reproduction (Darder, 2017; Freire, 1987). In the banking concept, the teacher’s duty is to fill the students’ minds with deposits of information which is considered the ‘true knowledge’ (see Chapter 15). As such, students will never achieve the stage of critical consciousness; t...