Criticism of critical physical education: Pedagogical eurocentrism and epistemological limitations

Abstract

A critical analysis about the book "Educación Física y pedagogía crítica, Propuestas para la transformación personal y social"(Physical Education and critical pedagogy, Proposals for the social and personal tranformation). This book addresses critical pedagogy in the PE subject, from a Eurocentric point of view that limits the critical postulates and the way of understanding social transformation. The book focuses on critical pedagogy from the point of view of a dominating logic, and all the critical perspectives built by different groups become almost invisible. Apart from that, almost all authors on whom the different postulates are based are from European and North American contexts. At the same time, contributions from the Global South are not taken too much into account. And those taken into account are slightly "sanitized"so that they fit into the scientific perspective of the so-called Global North. Although we think that the inclusion of those "other"authors is not indispensable, we propose the necessary comprehension of the educational phenomena's complexity through subjects located in areas with higher inequality indexes. Lastly, through examples and specific proposals, the improvement of educational practices without transforming the capitalist context (from which they emerge) is suggested, as these practices define certain power and domination relationships that rule the World System. Our intention is to create a fruitful dialogue with the author(s), so we can move forward and rethink ourselves from the point of view of critical pedagogy.