Physical education (PE) in Northern Ireland: Conceptualising and structuring PE in a complex landscape

Abstract

Physical education (PE) in Northern Ireland (NI) is positioned within a complex and separated educational context. While we know something about the PE curriculum within this landscape, we know little about how PE teachers navigate this complexity. Consequently, we recruited secondary PE teachers from different school types in NI ( n = 8) to take part in individual, semi-structured interviews to explore how they understand and structure their PE curriculum. Given this focus, our analysis paid some attention to Bernstein's (1975) concept of boundaries, which helps us to consider the potential impact of curriculum structures in schools. We found that all the PE teachers referred to the overarching national curriculum (the ‘Big Picture’ curriculum), highlighting the opportunities it offers – through weak boundaries – to shape broad, connected and meaningful PE curricula. However, the findings also reveal tensions that limited the extent to which these opportunities could be fully realised. Specifically, given the weak boundaries between sport and national identity in NI, sport (particularly team games) plays a significant role in shaping PE curricula. This, in part, may contribute to the perception among participants that PE is not valued by other teachers or society more broadly. We suggest that weakening boundaries both within the PE curriculum and across the broader school curriculum has the potential to shift the emphasis away from sport towards other forms of knowledge. This could create opportunities for teachers of other subjects to better understand the educative possibilities of PE.