High School Physical Education Teachers and Their World of Work: Scope and Direction of the Project

Abstract

There is a paucity of literature on the specific issues of high school physical education and how those who do the job manage to create quality programs. Since a recent issue of Quest (Siedentop & O'SulIivan, 1992) featured secondary school physical education, one might wonder whether a monograph so soon afterwards would be overkill. I would like to address this concem up front by suggesting that the intent of this project was significantly different from, though complementary to, the Quest effort. The Quest feature presented a critique of societal factors within which contemporary physical education programs and practices might be designed, critiqued, and challenged. This project presents an intensive study of the issues and concems about high school physical education teaching and programming at a micro level with 11 high school teachers and their world of physical education and teaching in today's high schools. The monograph attempts to describe, discuss, and understand perceptions and practices of these teachers of physical education, their students, and parents in light of a contemporary analysis of physical education. The specific objectives of this study were as follows: