Training for Coaching or Teaching - a Challenge for Swedish Physical Education Teacher Education

Abstract

Ever since the establishment of compulsory education in Sweden, competitive sports have had an important influence on the subject of physical education (PE) and Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE). In the latest curriculum of the subject of Physical Education, the name changed from Sports to Sport and Health indicating that health education should have a greater impact on the subject than before. Research and evaluation of the subject shows that activities related to competitive sports are the most frequent content during the lessons. It is also established by research that PE teacher educators share the value and norms of competitive sports, e.g. the necessity of using the body as a tool for success in sport. The teacher education students have a background in competitive sports and are also more interested in an education in sports than in a teacher education. PETE as well as the subject of PE is seen as conservative and reproductive. It is likely to believe that the connection to competitive sports is part of that conservatism. In order to develop PETE and really implement the aims of the curriculum it could be valuable to take the PE trainees' opinions of their future profession as a point of departure, supporting them in the tasks they find difficult and challenging them in the tasks they find easy. 25 PE trainees at a teacher education in Sweden were asked what tasks they find easy and what tasks they find difficult in the PE teacher profession? The answers were interpreted with the help of Bernstein's theory of the concepts of ‘classification' and ‘framing' and ‘educational transmission'. The PE trainees' view of the PE teacher profession can be described as: and distinct with motivated pupils, meaning that if the teacher is just and distinct the pupils will be motivated. They drew a picture of a teacher more like a referee in a sport game than a modern teacher. Can PETE challenge this picture and support the trainees' to build a PE teacher identity that is more in line with a skilled modern teacher. Can such an effort even be valuable for the leaders in competitive sports?