Physical education for health and wellbeing: A discourse analysis of Scottish physical education curricular documentation

Nollaig McEvilly, Martine Verheul, Matthew Atencio, Michael Jess

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of the discourses associated with physical education in Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence. We implement a poststructural perspective in order to identify the discourses that underpin the physical education sections of the Curriculum for Excellence ‘health and well-being’ documentation. Discourses related to physical activity and health are particularly prominent, along with a related concern with motor skill development. Our focus lies with the ways in which these discourses are likely to be taken up and deployed within Scottish educational establishments. The paper thus explores the ways in which these discourses might ‘work’ to produce specific effects on practitioners and pupils. This involves speculating about how practitioners and students might engage in specific practices relative to these discourses. We conclude that the discourses identified lend themselves to interpretation and negotiation in multiple ways in the context of Scottish physical education, with specific consequences for the experiences and subjectivities of practitioners and children.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)278-293
Number of pages16
JournalDiscourse
Volume35
Issue number2
Early online date20 Nov 2012
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • physical education
  • Scotland
  • curriculum
  • discourse analysis

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