Rules? Relationships?: A Feminist Analysis of Competition and Fair Play in Physical Education

Abstract

Regardless of recent curriculum revisions, physical educators, faced with reduced time and/or inadequate equipment and facilities, continue to offer competitive team sport activities for a high percentage of their program time. When competition is only experienced as a win-lose situation, possibilities that students will derive any morally educative benefit from their physical education class are reduced. When “fair play” means only adherence to game rules, the result may be unethical student/participant behavior and increases in student alienation from physical activity. I suggest that fair play should be considered from the perspective of an ethic of care, one that highlights responsibilities and a web of social relationships, rather than simply as an ethic of justice focused on rights and rules.