Papers by Matthew Atencio
Sport, Education and Society, 2015
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09540250802213123, Dec 3, 2008
This article investigates (i) how the structuring practices and meanings associated with dance cl... more This article investigates (i) how the structuring practices and meanings associated with dance classes at an inner‐city American high school operated as institutional spaces (re)producing ‘dividing practices’ that supported racial and classed hierarchies; (ii) how these racist structures were created and maintained relative to dominant notions of embodiment, ‘race’, social class, femininity, and dance; and (iii) the way these dominant practices and hierarchies were managed by two ‘black’ young women at the high school in order to construct particular modes of self‐governance. The analysis suggests that educators be attuned to the role that spaces play in creating particular types of ‘docile’ bodies and the strategies enacted by young people to create alternative embodied practices and subjectivities.
Sport Education and Society, Sep 16, 2014
ABSTRACT There is increasing support to describe and examine the teaching of game skills in physi... more ABSTRACT There is increasing support to describe and examine the teaching of game skills in physical education from a complex and nonlinear perspective. The emergence of game behaviours as a consequence of the dynamic interactions of the learner, the game environment and the task constraints within the game context highlights the nonlinear and complex nature of how learning of game skills can occur. While there is increasing recognition that teaching and learning should be seen from a complex and nonlinear perspective, the challenge is to provide teachers with ideas on how to deliver lessons and activities that are underpinned by specific pedagogical practices from this perspective and in alignment with emerging curricular guidelines. In this paper, key features of complex and nonlinear pedagogy are discussed and exemplified through a Singaporean PE context. Practical implications are shared on how lessons/activities (soccer) based on aspects of complex and nonlinear pedagogy can be delivered in the school.
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 17408989 2013 798407, Jan 6, 2015
Background: Preschool physical education has been largely unexplored by researchers. This article... more Background: Preschool physical education has been largely unexplored by researchers. This article examines the meaning of the term ‘physical education’, in relation to preschool contexts, to 14 practitioners working at three preschool settings in Scotland. Our focus on preschool physical education reflects a change in the language associated with young children's physical education in Scottish educational policy. The recently implemented Curriculum for Excellence refers to ‘physical education’ in relation to preschool education, whereas the previous Scottish preschool curriculum referred to ‘physical development and movement’. Methods: The study employed a poststructural type of discourse analysis concerned with identifying patterns in language use. Research methods employed were observations and interviews. Findings: Practitioners generally indicated that they were uncomfortable with the term ‘physical education’ in relation to preschool contexts. Terms they preferred included ‘physical play’, ‘exercise’ and ‘health and wellbeing’. Drawing on developmental discourses, they tended to associate ‘physical education’ with schools, positioning it as something more formal and structured than what preschool children would (or should) experience. It seemed that, for some practitioners, their privileging of play clashed with the notion of ‘physical education’. Conclusion: We suggest that researchers and policy-makers need to be aware that using the terms ‘physical education’ or ‘PE’ with preschool practitioners may be a problematic endeavour. Consulting with preschool practitioners is important for understanding why particular language, discourses and practices associated with physical education may be supported or resisted in preschool contexts. Furthermore, we suggest that preschool practitioners should critically reflect on taken-for-granted developmental discourses that position preschool children as ‘too young’ for particular experiences.
Design and Technology Education an International Journal, 2013
A common perception of designing is that it represents a highly complex activity that is manageab... more A common perception of designing is that it represents a highly complex activity that is manageable by only a few. However it has also been argued that all individuals are innately capable of designing. Taking up this latter view, we explored the processes behind student designing in the context of Design and Technology (D&T), a subject taught at the Secondary school level in Singapore. We examined the design journey undertaken by two students to understand what designing is like at their level. Case study methodology was adopted to develop a rich data set emerging from the students' design journals, maps of the students' design process, and interviews with the students and supervising teachers. The findings revealed that these students had innate capacities to design. Although the approach taken by each student differed, as reflected in visual representations reflecting the design process as well as their commentary, each displayed similar forms of design thinking. That is, both students proposed a novel and innovative solution to their design problem and were able to articulate sound reasoning of their design decisions throughout the entire design process. The supervising teachers enacted a more facilitative pedagogy that supported each student's design process; this approach differs from traditional pedagogical practices in Singaporean D&T that can be characterised as modelfocused and 'top down' in nature.
European Physical Education Review, 2014
ABSTRACT This paper explores pre-service PE teachers’ conceptions of outdoor education (OE) in Si... more ABSTRACT This paper explores pre-service PE teachers’ conceptions of outdoor education (OE) in Singapore. Survey questionnaires were administered to 120 pre-service teachers; 14 teachers participated in follow-up semi-structured interviews. The findings indicate that OE is predominantly situated within the outdoor camp environment. Pre-service teachers regularly envisioned the purpose of OE as to instil a sense of discipline among students and to ameliorate the negative health impacts of an urban and wealthy lifestyle. We propose that the dislocation of OE from local and situated school contexts as well as the instrumental nature of OE pedagogy runs contrary to aims of fos- tering acquisition of life skills and character development. We concomitantly question how the pre-service teachers’ envisioning of OE can convincingly support holistic learning outcomes deemed beneficial to Singaporean youth and society more broadly.
Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 2014
ABSTRACT This paper details the potential contribution of outdoor education (OE) in Singaporean e... more ABSTRACT This paper details the potential contribution of outdoor education (OE) in Singaporean education given the recent raft of national curricular reforms aimed at fostering holistic and exploratory learning opportunities. In this context, we contend that increasing recognition of the value of OE, both internationally and locally, heralds specific challenges within unique Singaporean educational conditions that must be taken into account for this subject area to flourish. In particular, we seek to distil the ways in which local community, cultural and school conditions signal the need for a more place-based and contextualised version of OE. Our analysis further addresses the need for adequate professional development frameworks to be installed in order to enhance existing local teachers’ capacities to substantially educate pupils through the outdoors, within a Southeast Asian urban context.
Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 2014
Under neo-liberal policies in many countries, there has been an extensive trend of educational re... more Under neo-liberal policies in many countries, there has been an extensive trend of educational reform which intensifies competition. Such educational reform is underpinned by direct government control, seen in centre to periphery forms of policy administration and implementation with strong emphasis on managerialism and test-oriented accountability models. There are critical views and opinions about such neo-liberal reforms, but a need still exists to discuss ways forward to protect the equality and right of teachers and student learners in schooling. This essay accordingly aims to discuss how the lesson study for learning community (LSLC) approach of school reform from Japan might signal a practical shift in emphasis away from competitive models of schooling fostered by school reform movements. The aim of this study is to discuss the philosophical underpinnings of LSLC, with particular emphasis on its social justice nature, particularly in reference to criticisms against neoliberal reform agendas.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 2013
h i g h l i g h t s < Lesson study (LS) challenges teachers' working relations and identities. < ... more h i g h l i g h t s < Lesson study (LS) challenges teachers' working relations and identities. < Evaluative attitudes in LS can be detrimental to teachers' community. < The relationships among teachers, consultants and students should be de-centred. < Micro-political views provide insight into the complex LS importation process. < Post-structural and post-colonial views reveal power and identity issues in LS.
Sport, Education and Society, 2012
ABSTRACT There is increasing support to describe and examine the teaching of game skills in physi... more ABSTRACT There is increasing support to describe and examine the teaching of game skills in physical education from a complex and nonlinear perspective. The emergence of game behaviours as a consequence of the dynamic interactions of the learner, the game environment and the task constraints within the game context highlights the nonlinear and complex nature of how learning of game skills can occur. While there is increasing recognition that teaching and learning should be seen from a complex and nonlinear perspective, the challenge is to provide teachers with ideas on how to deliver lessons and activities that are underpinned by specific pedagogical practices from this perspective and in alignment with emerging curricular guidelines. In this paper, key features of complex and nonlinear pedagogy are discussed and exemplified through a Singaporean PE context. Practical implications are shared on how lessons/activities (soccer) based on aspects of complex and nonlinear pedagogy can be delivered in the school.
Sport, Education and Society, 2009
This paper draws on Bourdieu's notions of habitus, social field, and capital to provide a more co... more This paper draws on Bourdieu's notions of habitus, social field, and capital to provide a more complex examination of the place and meaning of physical education in Turkish young people's lives. Two secondary schools comprised of students from quite distinctive social, cultural, and geographical locations were involved in the study. Collected data from several focus group discussions, individual interviews, and class observations was analysed in relation to the themes of 'social class', 'gender', and 'students' positions within the social field of 'physical education'. The findings demonstrate how the national Turkish physical education (PE) curriculum became interpreted and deployed by each school in distinctive ways. Both schools promoted disciplinary and performance-based physical activities in the PE social field, even as they used different physical activities and had different reasons for privileging these types of activities. Physical education was used by the middle-upper-class school to reify and enhance the symbolic, cultural, and social capital of young people, who were regarded as future intellectual, business, and government leaders within Turkish society. In comparison, the school based in the poor suburb used physical activity as a means to create 'good' and 'productive' citizen-subjects. However, in using particular physical activities to create certain types of subjects with institutionally valued habitus (including physical 'abilities' and personal and social attributes), both schools ended up privileging only a few select young men and women whose physical capital was commensurate with the discursive requirements of the social field. From this perspective, we argue that both schools authorised certain individuals (mostly young men) who were able to take up ascendant positions because they could most easily convert their physical capital into social and cultural forms. These students were most able to determine acceptable forms of embodiment and could dictate patterns of use in the physical education classroom. In many instances, their dominance worked to prevent most of their peers from fully participating in PE.
Sport, Education and Society, 2011
This paper describes how complexity theory principles relating to self-emergence and connectivity... more This paper describes how complexity theory principles relating to self-emergence and connectivity have been employed to inform our recent developmental work in Scottish physical education. We suggest that these complexity principles have purchase in postmodern times characterised by uncertainty, multiplicity, and contradiction (Fernandez-Balboa, 1997). We cite examples from the development and delivery of a Developmental Physical Education Programme in Scotland to assert that complex learning principles can be employed to structure curriculum and pedagogy endeavours. These examples from practice highlight the ways in which a complexity-oriented learning approach provides a challenge to hierarchical, reductionist, and behaviourist notions of learning which have long held a strong foothold in the field of physical education . At the same time, we pay attention to critical questions which have been raised regarding the practicality of structuring educational practice with emerging theories such as complexity theory .
Sport, Education and Society, 2013
Morgan and Hansen suggest that further research is needed to explore how non-specialist primary t... more Morgan and Hansen suggest that further research is needed to explore how non-specialist primary teachers approach and teach physical education (PE) based on their personal school PE backgrounds, teacher education experiences and ongoing professional development. This paper adopts Lawson's socialisation model, a theoretical framework subsequently used by many other researchers, to explore how primary teachers’ experiences in various contexts ‘shape [their] knowledge and beliefs about the purpose of physical education, its content and teaching approaches’. Examining teachers’ beliefs and attitudes towards PE is arguably important as it highlights how they approach the profession and enact particular teaching practices. We examine the views of 327 non-specialist primary teachers who participated in a postgraduate certificate in primary PE run by the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. This article reports findings from the baseline data of our longitudinal research—arguably crucial in ascertaining teachers’ starting point and useful in monitoring the programme's impact. Our findings suggest the prevalence of negative PE experience during primary and secondary years, which we considered part of Lawson's ‘acculturation’ phase. Experiences during initial teacher education (ITE) or ‘professional socialisation’ showed that teachers were only given a basic starting point, which was inadequate for teaching PE effectively. The initial teaching experience or ‘organisational socialisation’ stage also presented major challenges for teachers who endeavoured to apply knowledge and skills acquired during ‘professional socialisation’. We suggest that how teachers’ conceptions about PE are formulated and the accounts of challenges they encountered upon school entry are vital for the design and delivery of effective ITE and PE-CPD. Additionally, these findings underpin the need for more critical and reflective learning experiences at all levels of PE.
Sport, Education and Society, 2013
... [Taylor &amp;amp; Francis Online] View all references), Sanders and Graham (199546. Sande... more ... [Taylor &amp;amp; Francis Online] View all references), Sanders and Graham (199546. Sanders, S. and Graham, G. 1995. ... Journal of Teaching in Physical Education , 14(4): 372–383. [Web of Science ®], [CSA] View all references) and Herskind (201025. Herskind, M. 2010. ...
Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise, 2009
This paper explores gendered relations and identities which evolved amongst street skateboarders.... more This paper explores gendered relations and identities which evolved amongst street skateboarders. Drawing from Bourdieu, we suggest that various social fields such as ‘skateboarding media’, ‘D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) culture’, and ‘lifestyle/action sports’ overlapped and worked to maintain gendered divisions within street skateboarding based upon the logics of individualism and embodiment. Masculine habituses were most closely associated with risk‐taking behaviours
Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy, 2013
ABSTRACT Background: Preschool physical education has been largely unexplored by researchers. Thi... more ABSTRACT Background: Preschool physical education has been largely unexplored by researchers. This article examines the meaning of the term ‘physical education’, in relation to preschool contexts, to 14 practitioners working at three preschool settings in Scotland. Our focus on preschool physical education reflects a change in the language associated with young children&#39;s physical education in Scottish educational policy. The recently implemented Curriculum for Excellence refers to ‘physical education’ in relation to preschool education, whereas the previous Scottish preschool curriculum referred to ‘physical development and movement’. Methods: The study employed a poststructural type of discourse analysis concerned with identifying patterns in language use. Research methods employed were observations and interviews. Findings: Practitioners generally indicated that they were uncomfortable with the term ‘physical education’ in relation to preschool contexts. Terms they preferred included ‘physical play’, ‘exercise’ and ‘health and wellbeing’. Drawing on developmental discourses, they tended to associate ‘physical education’ with schools, positioning it as something more formal and structured than what preschool children would (or should) experience. It seemed that, for some practitioners, their privileging of play clashed with the notion of ‘physical education’. Conclusion: We suggest that researchers and policy-makers need to be aware that using the terms ‘physical education’ or ‘PE’ with preschool practitioners may be a problematic endeavour. Consulting with preschool practitioners is important for understanding why particular language, discourses and practices associated with physical education may be supported or resisted in preschool contexts. Furthermore, we suggest that preschool practitioners should critically reflect on taken-for-granted developmental discourses that position preschool children as ‘too young’ for particular experiences.
Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy, 2012
Background: It has been proposed that twenty-first century physical education needs to be reorien... more Background: It has been proposed that twenty-first century physical education needs to be reorientated and restructured to meet the lifelong learning needs of pupils from diverse socio-cultural, emotional, and developmental backgrounds. It follows that quality physical education (PE) Continuing Professional Development (CPD) opportunities for practising professionals are needed to support these aims. In Scotland, professional and policy-making groups have specifically called for at least 120 minutes of quality physical education to be delivered each week by appropriately trained staff.Purpose: This paper highlights three phases of PE CPD beginning in 2001 that have been structured to include teaching professionals working in Scottish primary schools. We illustrate how collaborative learning communities emerged through the PE CPD. While emphasising the merits of collaborative learning principles, we also describe how these learning communities operated as complex educational systems. We specifically discuss how these communities were linked in a ‘nested’ relationship with local schools and local authorities. We also discuss how learning communities self-organised and innovated in relation to the instigation of ‘turbulent’ practices and knowledges.Findings: The study follows ten practitioners who participated in Basic Moves PE CPD programmes over the past 10 years in Scotland. During the initial phase (2001–2004), the participants were enthused about the reflective and collaborative learning model that was used in regular workshops and courses. These members felt that this approach to PE CPD improved on traditional one-day and generic courses. In Basic Moves PE CPD courses, administrators provoked critical and even uncomfortable discussions in order to challenge teachers' pre-existing views of physical education. Consequently, the group organised and emerged as a ‘community of practice’. Many of the study participants continued to work together and even became Basic Moves PE CPD instructors themselves. However, as the programme increased in popularity and expanded to a national level in 2004, the PE CPD followed an ‘empty vessel’ model, whereby new participants were given course material over a short duration in a few centralised workshops. Feedback suggested that this ‘top down’ approach would not facilitate the emergence of learning communities, as many of those involved in local PE delivery became isolated and felt marginalised in their practice. Subsequent discussions led to the development of learning communities that were supported in local communities by former and current participants. These ‘tutor networks’ reflected the complex relationships that existed between pupils, teachers, headteachers, PE specialists, local authority managers and policy makers.Conclusion: Our analysis suggests that the PE practitioners in our study worked alongside a range of educational stakeholders within a broader ‘nested system’ that was constantly evolving and changing. Accordingly, we argue that contemporary PE CPD must challenge practitioners to become critical and innovative learners in the context of dynamic learning communities. This version of PE CPD requires sustained support at the local level and directly involves PE practitioners, their peers, and local authority leadership in the planning and operational phases.
Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy, 2011
Journal of Adventure Education & Outdoor Learning, 2008
... extensively discussed how social capital can be created and sustained within local communitie... more ... extensively discussed how social capital can be created and sustained within local communities and national contexts, there is ... Decolonising encounters with the Murray River: Building place responsive outdoor education. Australian Journal of Outdoor Education , 8(2): 46–55. ...
Irish Educational Studies, 2009
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Papers by Matthew Atencio