Physical education: Conceptual guidelines and notions of elementary education teaching staff

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the discourse of Physical Education (PE) and group teachers on the concept of PE, its pedagogical orientation, expected learning from students, and learning transfer, in a public primary school (EP-PUB) and a private school (EP-PRIV). The research was qualitative, developed from a case study: two teachers from each unit: one group teacher and one physical education teacher in each school. The methods used were phenomenological and hermeneutic, supported by the analytical-synthetic and theoretical-deductive approaches. In-depth interviews and bibliographical techniques were used as information-gathering tools. The analysis of the discourse was supported in the typologies and level of reflection postured by Viciana, Delgado and Del Villar (1997). The results highlight distant approaches to established definitions of reference among actors in public and private primary education. Their speeches indicate partial and barely explanatory attributes when compared to those raised at the national level for Mexico by the Secretary of Public Education (SEP) and in the international context by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). However, in the speeches it is possible to detect partial similarities with standards close to the current perspectives and pedagogical orientation of PE; at present, there is the need to respond to the paradigm of the multidimensional human being in the process of building their life, and PE supports the integral line of well-being and its development in different contexts.