In the United Kingdom (UK) particularly, grouping strategies in secondary education have attracted considerable political attention. While setting students by ability is frequently adopted in mathematics, English and science, mixed-ability grouping is common in other subjects, including physical education (PE). Educational research exploring…

In recent years, the judgements that typically determine who is an 'able' physical education (PE) student have been sharply challenged. The research literature suggests that skills in sports, health-related fitness, toughness, competitiveness and effort typically play a significant role in assessment procedures. Although Evans (2004) lamented the…

Many understandings about norms and norm criticism are based on imaginations of inclusion and exclusion as if values about right and wrong, and acceptable and non-acceptable behaviors belong to a world of relations that can be separated from embodied and physical things and practices. This preparatory study is based on interviews conducted with…

Physical education (PE) in England, has historically been and is increasingly seen as a subject in which political agendas can and are being enacted (Penney, [2008]. Playing a political game and playing for position: Policy and curriculum development in health and PE. "European Physical Education Review" 4(1): 33-49) as health, sport and…

This article explores the importance of critical discourse in physical education (PE) that focuses on how understandings of ability are defined, practised, and potentially altered. Research continues to indicate that physical educators continue to draw on narrow notions of ability which are influenced by the presence of a pervasive performative…

In this article, the authors borrow from anti-oppressive education theory for its potential to disrupt how students visually conceive sporting bodies and to problematize the teaching and learning of these bodies within undergraduate physical education (PE) programs. Fourteen photo stories produced by students enrolled in PE programs at two…

In this paper, we explore how physically disabled youth who participate in mainstream education discursively construct and position themselves in relation to dominant discourses about sport and physicality that mark their bodies as "abnormal" and "deviant". We employ a feminist poststructuralist perspective to analyze the…

Within the UK and internationally, schools are increasingly being encouraged to call on external agencies and draw on the services of individuals, including sport coaches, to "help teach or lead sports within the school setting and out of school time". This trend arises from and has contributed to a changing policy landscape and…

This paper reports on a study investigating the empirical substance of Evans' proposed social construction of ability. Data were collected through text analysis of a Senior physical education (PE) syllabus, semi-structured interviews and participant observations of students and teachers in two senior secondary school contexts (one school situated…

This paper examines the meaning of ability in the context of dance education, in part, via the lens of aesthetic education, a reasonably well-developed body of ideas, and asks what it means to be "aesthetically able". While aesthetic education tends to focus on aesthetic appreciation, it does also deal with a person's capacity to respond…

This paper provides two vignettes that draw on data from projects that interrogate how a student can be positioned by practices within physical education (PE) and directed by the PE teacher in relation to their valued or legitimated ability. Through the use of Pierre Bourdieu's conceptual tools of field, habitus and capital we investigate the…

This article examines the curricular constructions that influence our perceptions of learner "ability" within games education. Games education has both inherent and intrinsic value for learners, and within this context, teachers make important choices about what they believe will be of most value and interest for students. This in turn impacts the…

This paper explores the prospect of genetic tests for performance in physical activity and sports practices. It investigates the terminology associated with genetics, testing, selection and ability as a means towards a socio-ethical analysis of its value within sport, education and society. Our argument suggests that genetic tests need not even be…