What is physical education (PE), and who teaches it? Undergraduate PE students' views and experiences of the outsourcing of PE in the UK

This study investigates beginning BSc Physical Education (PE) students’ (n=16) views and experiences of the outsourcing of PE in the UK. Outsourcing is a form of educational privatisation (Ball, 2007), which involves the... [ view full abstract ]

This study investigates beginning BSc Physical Education (PE) students’ (n=16) views and experiences of the outsourcing of PE in the UK. Outsourcing is a form of educational privatisation (Ball, 2007), which involves the provision of PE by external providers such as sports coaching or health promotion businesses (Evans, 2014; Sperka & Enright, 2017). PE in the UK (and other neoliberal western contexts) is a site in which outsourcing is becoming increasingly normalised (Evans, 2014). As first year undergraduates, the participants had relatively recent experience of outsourcing as pupils/students (i.e. experience of receiving outsourced PE provision) and, in some cases, experience of providing outsourced PE (as sports coaches in schools). Data were generated through written narratives, completed on the participants’ first day at university, and follow-up semi-structured interviews. Drawing on a Foucaultian theoretical framework, I analysed the data by employing a poststructural type of discourse analysis concerned with analysing patterns in language. Referring to PE, the participants drew heavily on a sport discourse, often conflating PE with sport and emphasising the necessity of teachers having knowledge and experience of sports content and skills. The participants had all experienced some form of outsourcing in PE, particularly at primary level. They were in favour of primary PE being taught by either specialist PE teachers, or sports coaches (rather than generalist teachers). They spoke positively about their own experiences of such external provision, with few critical comments provided, although some participants questioned if teachers might feel devalued by external providers being brought in to teach aspects of their curriculum. In general, however, the participants’ prioritisation of sports knowledge and skills meant that they valued coaches’ perceived superior content knowledge and sporting experience. As such, by conflating PE with sport, they considered that PE should be taught by sport ‘experts’, rather than necessarily education experts.