The Contribution of Teacher Talk to the Production and Reproduction of Gendered Subjectivity in Physical Education Lessons Janice E
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University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 1991 The contribution of teacher talk to the production and reproduction of gendered subjectivity in physical education lessons Janice E. Wright University of Wollongong, [email protected] Recommended Citation Wright, Janice E., The onc tribution of teacher talk to the production and reproduction of gendered subjectivity in physical education lessons, thesis, Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong, 1991. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/2922 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] THE CONTRIBUTION OF TEACHER TALK TO THE PRODUCTION AND REPRODUCTION OF GENDERED SUBJECTIVITY IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION LESSONS A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY from THE UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG by JANICE E. WRIGHT B.Ed, M.Ed (Sydney) Faculty of Education 1991 DECLARATION I certify that the substance of this thesis has not already been submitted for any degree and is not being submitted for any degree. I certify that any help received in preparing this thesis, and all the sources used, have been acknowledged. Signed ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study would not have been possible without the assistance of a number of people and organisations. Firstly, I need to express my gratitude to the Department of Education for its authorisation of this project and to the teachers and students who participated. A special thanks must go to the teachers who agreed to wear a cumbersome tape recorder in order to have their lessons recorded. I wish to thank my supervisors for their support and guidance throughout the period of this project. I thank Associate Professor Terry Threadgold for enticing me into new and exciting theoretical fields and Professor Ron King for his continued provocation of a critical edge. I am especially indebted to my colleagues, Beverly Derewianka, Bill Winser and Jenny Hammond at Wollongong University who persuaded me that in linguistics, and particularly in systemic linguistics, I would find the means to take my study into new areas of theory and analysis. My friends and colleagues at Deakin University, Richard Tinning and David Kirk, have made an important contribution to the project through their thoughtful and constructive critique of the thesis at all stages of its production and through their interest and faith in the relevance of its methodology and findings to changing physical education. I am also grateful to the University of Wollongong and to Professor Noeline Kyle as coordinator of the Equity in Education Research Program for financial assistance in the early stages of the project. A special thanks must go to my family and in particular to my partner Nick Canosa for his patience and support and to Mieke Scheeringa for her help in the production of the final text. I ABSTRACT It is widely accepted that girls and women are less likely to participate in physical activity, have on average lower cardiovascular fitness and are more obese than boys and men. The response to this by the government and by those espousing a liberal femininist position has been to argue that such differences are the consequence of inequality of opportunity in regard to access to resources, skills and teaching time. This position takes for granted the value of sport and physical education as it is practised in western societies. It does not pose as problematic the contribution that such practices make to the (re)production of expressions of femininity which motivate girls' apparent reticence to participate in physical activity. This study goes beyond an equity approach to investigate the ways in which the practices of teachers contribute to girls' alienation from physical activity. In particular it investigates how the linguistic choices made by teachers and students reproduced particular subjects and subjectivities in relation to patriarchal discourses of femininity and masculinity. Although framed within a broad ethnographic approach, feminist, poststructuralist and linguistic theory has informed the methodology and analysis of the study. Teacher-pupil interactions were recorded by means of video and audio tape. Teacher language was analysed using methods developed from systemic functional linguistics. Non-verbal aspects of teacher and student behaviour were not central to the study but were important in providing both context and additional information about the social relations between teachers and their students and students with each other. The cultural and historical contexts which contributed to the framing of the physical education lesson as genre and to the determination of teachers' and pupils' subjectivities were also investigated in order to interpret teacher-pupil interactions in the lessons. To 11 this end the production and recontextualisation of discourses and practices affecting contemporary practices in Australian physical education were mapped from their beginnings in the male and female traditions of physical education operating in nineteenth century Britain. An examination of media representations of women in sport together with an analysis of inteiviews conducted with teachers and students provided insights into the ways in which students were likely to be positioned in relation to the dominant values and beliefs about masculinity and femininity as these intersect with those discourses associated with sport in Australian society. Results of the study indicated that girls and women were positioned and positioned themselves as marginal to sports discourse; that is, as passive, lacking in skill, strength and enthusiasm and as the antithesis of the male students who were constructed as skilled, enthusiastic, tough, competitive and knowledgeable. The female students and female teachers, however, exhibited a greater facility with interpersonal language. The resistance of female students to male teaching practices usually drew on their expertise and power in the discourses and genres of heterosexual relations. In this study co-educational experiences appeared to provide very alienating contexts for girls in which they were unlikely to develop skill. However, the language of female and male teachers in single-sex classes was also found to contribute to the normative positioning of female and male students in relation to patriarchal discourses of femininity and masculinity. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract Table of Contents List of Tables List of Appendices CHAPTERl AN INTRODUCI10N TO THE S1UDY 1.1 A statement of aim 1.2 Background and rationale 1.2.2 Equal opportunity in education and physical education 1.2.2 Women and physical activity: an historical overview of the literature 1.3 Methodology 1.4 Outline of the thesis 1.5 An Autobiographical note CHAPTER2 SUBJECT AND SUBJECI1VITIES 2.1 Theories of subjectivity 2.1.1 Psychoanalysis and subjectivity: the 'unconscious' and the construction of desire 2.1.2 Structuralism and subjectivity: the relationship between the subject and society 2.1.3 Foucault and relations of power 2.1.4 Genre as a means of institutionalising purpose 2.2 Sites of (re )production: specific cultural practices implicated in the production of subjectivites 2.2.1 Language and subjectivity · 2.2.2 Embodied subjectivity 2.3 Subjectivity, agency and resistance 2.3.1 Normative and contesting discourses 2.3.1.1 Foucault and alternative 'regimes of truth' 2.3.1.2 Kristeva and the semiotic 2.3.2 Multiple subjectivities: possibilities for change 2.3.3 Alternative discourses, agency and change CHAPTER3 THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT: MAPPING THE DISCOURSES AND PRACTICES OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION 3 .1 Introduction 3.2 The British experience 3.2.1 Boys' physical education: drill and games 3.2.2 The female tradition in physical education 3. 3 The Australian experience 3. 3. 1 Drill and games - 1880-l 930's 3.3.2 The female tradition in New South Wales to 1960 3.3.3 The male tradition in New South Wales to 1960 3.4 The masculine tradition as~ tradition with sports and games as its focus 3.5 Contemporary trends: humanistic physical education and health-related fitness 3.6 State of the art: the 1980/5 Syllabus in New South Wales 3.7 The 'traditional physical education lesson' 3.8 Conclusion: physical education, sport and social control CHAPTER IV THE CULTURAL CONTEXT: IMAGES OF 1HE BODY 4.1 Bodies and sexuality 4.2 Media representations of the body in sport 4.3 Representations of gymnastics and gymnasts in the media 4.3.1 The Seoul Olympics: sexuality and sexual difference 4.3.2 Child-women: the docile body 4.4 Conclusion CHAPTERV DISCURSIVE BIOGRAPHIES: STUDENTS' AND TEACHERS' SUBJECTIVITIES 5 .1 Introduction 5.2 The physical and social contexts of the interviews 5. 3 Sexual relations: the construction of female incompetence and male superiority 5.3.1 'Problem students': the teachers' perceptions of female students 5.3.2 Playing with the boys: female students' perceptions 5.3.3 Playing with the girls: male students' perceptions of female students 5 .4 Activity=fitness=sexual attracctiveness 5.4.1 Activity=fitness=moral good 5.4.2 Physical activity, body image and sexual attractiveness 5.5 Rough and tumble: male machismo and physical education 5.6 Female as the antithesis of male 5.7 Conclusions CHAPTER VI THE CASE STUDIES 6.1 The schools: contexts of situation 6.1.1 Baden: co-educational physical education 6.1.2 Newman: single sex physical