Was Physical Education as bad as people remember it? A qualitative thematic review

Observations of middle aged to retired clients in Personal Training practices in London UK, surfaced two themes; exercise-averse individuals with sedentary leisure and work pursuits reported poor experiences of physical education in secondary (high) school, whereas more active clients reported positive reflections. This instigated a systematic examination of contemporaneous documents and literature, which sought to explain the context of this reality. Five major themes emerged: The politico-educational environment from the 1960’s to the 1970’s, the parallel experience of maths anxiety, teaching practice, navigating failure, and economic implications. Evidence suggests why the behaviour of a generation has been impacted; a post-war hierarchical social order undergoing profound change, poor pedagogic practices in which the less able found themselves suffering everything from corporal punishment to physical embarrassment, and response models to failure predict clients’ later behaviours. The research findings substantiate the claims of clients’ memories of negative experiences with physical education at secondary school. The research concludes that the socio- economic costs associated with such past failures in PE are estimated to exceed £6 billion over the life of a contemporary five-year UK government and have clear social and economic implications for other developed democracies.

Special Issue-Xmas Conference 2021