L'enseignement de l'éducation physique comme « action située » : propositions pour une approche d'anthropologie cognitive

Abstract

This paper presents an anthropological approach to PE teaching. It proposes a conceptual framework, and illustrates some of its principal dimensions based on results of empirical studies. The action is viewed as a « situated action », having self-organizing properties. Five features of situated action are presented : 1) the action-situation coupling : the situation is constructed by the actor and has no existence outside of the action he or she produces ; 2) the meaning-building activity : action is organized as a chain of meaningful units which are built in situ ; 3) the objects as cognitive artifacts : action is an accomplishment that takes place in a context and the teacher uses the objects as « action resource » ; 4) the teacher's action organization coupled to the students action : the teacher defines a working space and time which in return provides himself or herself resources for action and defines the spatial and temporal action structuring ; 5) the organization of actions and the archetypical sequences : the action is cyclical and repetitive.