School Physical Education in Three Chilean Schools: a Characterization of their Teaching Practices

Physical Education (PE) generally, and Chilean one, specifically, is in the middle of an identity crisis. There is a vision of the body as a production object. This vision has been generated in the light of social Darwinism, and at the same time there are other more conciliatory and global approaches. This investigation tries, with a holistic approach based on participating observation, to look into the practices carried out in relation to PE in schools in the Chilean context. The main conclusion from the analysis carried out is that in schools, PE is mainly focused on “doing” and on the production of results that can later on be assessed with objectivity. This means that schools are still an environment in which discrimination is still present and motor competency is the regulating factor for the processes generated in schools.