What would bell hooks think of the remote teaching and learning in Physical Education during the COVID-19 pandemic? A critical review of the literature

Abstract

This critical narrative review draws on bell hooks’ engaged pedagogy to examine the pedagogies deployed by PE teachers and PETE educators in response to COVID-19. Full-text, empirical studies between 2020 and 2022 were accessed through Academic Search Complete, Education Database (ProQuest), Education Research Complete (EBSCO), ERIC (EBSCO), Scopus, and SPORTDiscus. In total, 86 articles were considered for full-text review, with 38 articles moving to data extraction after having met the study’s inclusion criteria. We used inductive and deductive methods of data analysis. Findings are reported and discussed according to (a) the inductive identification of pedagogies deployed by PE teachers and PETE educators during COVID-19; and (b) the deductive analysis of the literature using bell hooks’ engaged pedagogy as a theoretical lens. This review determined that whilst the COVID-19 pandemic may have signalled an opportunity to advance an engaged pedagogical approach in PE and PETE, there was scant evidence of teachers or researchers choosing this path. Instead, innovation, criticality, creativity, mutuality, engagement and meaningful learning was suspended in favour of day-to-day survival. Most papers focused on remote learning enablers rather than engaged pedagogy; that is, they focused on the communication technologies required to connect to online spaces and then to teach within them. We outline directions and critical challenges for PE teachers and PETE educators to develop equitable, inclusive, and empathetic classroom spaces which seek to create learning that is transformative, dynamic and holistic.