Embodying policy work: an exploration of contexts, actions and meanings towards new possibilities for physical education teacher education (PETE)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This theoretical paper presents a heuristic framework that is directed towards transformative thinking and practices in Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE). The research focus and direction, embodying policy work, applies and extends Bernstein’s concepts of the pedagogic and corporeal device to offer new directions for inquiry and explore the considerations these raise for PETE professionals and their practices. The paper affirms the importance of policy work in PETE, while recognising a need for more nuanced and critical understandings of the complex interrelationships between contexts and actions, and the potential meanings generated and ascribed to different forms of policy work and identities in-situ. Attention focuses specifically on the ways in which individuals ascribe meaning to practices in PETE through everyday actions and relational behaviours, locating embodied practices and meanings as integral to policy work in PETE. The heuristic framework facilitates exploration of three sets of rules: (i) contextual rules of embodying policy work; (ii) rules of/for embodying actions; and (iii) rules of/for embodying potential meanings. Each focus is explored in turn to develop specific, yet interrelated lines of inquiry that can guide empirical work that extends insight into the policy work of PETE professionals and programmes. Discussion highlights the importance of such work in expanding visions for the sustainable transformation of PETE.