The problem of ideology in making sense of physical education and sport: Reflections on the Colwell—Mansfield debate

Abstract

Two papers in the European Physical Education Review by Colwell (1999) and Mansfield (this issue) have argued respectively against, and in favour of, a potential synthesis between feminism and figurational sociology as a vehicle for making more adequate sense of physical education and sport. This paper offers both selective summaries and reflections upon some of the theoretical implications arising from this exchange, specifically as it relates to sport in schools. The first sections offer some remarks about sociological theory and the ways in which the theoretical endeavour is bound up with what C. Wright Mills has termed `the sociological imagination', one aspect of which has included the relatively recent emergence of a more reflexive, democratizing and synthesizing generation of sociologists. The paper concludes that we do not have to either agree or disagree with Colwell or Mansfield. Nor is there a need for a present-centred approach to, or resolution of, the theoretical issues arising from the exchange. Rather, there is scope for stimulating further this kind of dialogue between researchers of physical education, sport and gender and being well versed in these concerns.