A Question for Legitimating PE as a Subject in School and Teacher Education: What Knowledge of PE is Valid in the Perspective of Other Subjects? = A Question for Legitimating PE as a Subject in School and Teacher Education: What Knowledge of PE is Valid in the Perspective of Other Subjects?

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Purpose: Although many studies have found that Physical Education (PE) is a popular subject there is an on-going discussion about its aim and what legitimizes it as a school subject. What knowledge appears as legitimate within the subject of PE is, however, hard to identify, which creates controversies within the field. Therefore the aim of this paper is to contribute in discussing by increasing the understanding about what knowledge appears as valid in PE in the perspective of other subjects. Method: This paper is a sort of plan for doing study. The conceptual framework for this study is curriculum theory, inspired by Bernstein’s (2000) theoretical work on the social construction of knowledge. The focus is on selection processes of knowledge in the educational system. According to Bernstein, education is a field where there is a struggle between interests and actors competing to define the field but also arguing about what knowledge is to be counted as legitimate. For this study I will use different empirical material. The first material comprises teacher education programs for elementary teachers which were developed by government in 2005 and subject descriptions from eight departments of teacher education as well as various policy documents for the subject in the compulsory school. The second material contains interviews with actors who have influence over how the subject is formulated for the teacher education program as well as for the compulsory school. As a basis for comparison and analysis, material from four different teacher education programs and school subjects will be gathered. The subjects include PE, Music, Korean and Mathematics. The selection is based on the different traditions that these subjects represent. (Expected) Results: The result will contribute on the knowledge about similarities and dissimilarities according to what knowledge appears as valid in different subjects and how this is defined. Moreover, the result will provide knowledge about how different subjects relate to the primary field of production and how this relation is expressed in these subjects. The study is most likely to offer an understanding about the identity problem of the subject of PE in the perspective of what knowledge appears as legitimate in relation to other subjects, but also about the character of these different subjects as well as how they relate to the primary field of production Key words: Physical education as subject, identity of subject, teacher education program