Bourdieu and the social space of the PE class: reproduction of Doxa through practice

Abstract

This paper considers the social space of one physical education (PE) class in the middle years of schooling. I endeavour to tease out the dialectic between the discursive spaces available to the students positioned within this space and the construction and negotiation of student subjectivities. Using the conceptual tools of field, habitus, practice, capital, illusio, and doxa provided by Pierre Bourdieu and of embodied subjectivities from post‐structural feminism, three particular spaces are explored, namely: ‘the good student’, ‘hetero/sexism’ and ‘the body’. I argue for a (re)turn to conversations around PE as a learning area and learning as embodied as a way to meet the needs of more young people through PE. Like others, I also question PE's existence as it is currently configured in the school curriculum.