Beginning teachers’ descriptions of ball games as pedagogic practice in Swedish physical education

Abstract

Teaching approaches in ball games in school physical education (PE) have traditionally focused on technical proficiency. Technical approaches have been criticised for being teacher-centred, exclusive, and lacking meaning. Game-based approaches (GBAs) have been presented as an alternative way to teach ball games. Employing GBAs is, however, not without challenges. Scholars have pointed to teachers’ limited content knowledge of games, their poor understanding of GBAs, and cultural expectations of ball games as factors that constrain teachers’ work with GBAs. The aim of this article is to provide an understanding of how beginning teachers describe ball games as a pedagogic practice in Swedish PE. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 beginning teachers who had graduated from two physical education teacher education (PETE) institutions. Bernstein's concepts of classification and framing were used to analyse the teachers’ descriptions of pedagogic practice. The findings illustrate how the classification of ball games knowledge varies. Some of the beginning teachers aimed to develop pupils’ understanding of games while others instead used ball games as a means for developing general movement capability or cooperation. Ball games teaching was characterised by a combination of GBAs and technical approaches. The influence of competitive sport outside of school was seen as a challenge, and the beginning teachers used strong framing and different teaching strategies combined with assessment to manage this challenge. The findings raise questions about ball games education in PETE in relation to specific national contexts.