‘A sound system of physical training’: the development of girls’ physical education in interwar Scotland

Abstract

As Hargreaves and McCrone have shown, from the mid‐nineteenth century physical education became an integral yet relatively unregulated feature of the curriculum of the middle‐ and upper class girls. By the interwar years, however, girls’ physical education had radically evolved. Increased state intervention in education from the turn of the century onwards had an impact on all aspects of the curriculum. Government legislation and departmental reports regarding the formalisation of the physical education syllabus clearly highlight contemporary opinions concerning the potential use, need and importance of such training for children. During the interwar years these ideas were combined with newly emerging concerns. These included an increasing preoccupation with eugenicist theories relating to the nation’s health, and moral and social training encompassing notions of citizenship.