Embodied Pedagogy and Movement (Discourses) in Physical Education

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About this Research Topic

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Background

Teaching practices in higher education are dependent on the participants’ bodily presence, expressivity, and actions. This relationship is often taken for granted and operates as a tacit dimension of teaching. However, the use of concepts such as “embodied pedagogy”, “bodily learning” and “embodiment” has increased in the research literature on physical education over the last twenty years. The increased use of these concepts in research suggests that there is a need to “unpack” the concepts and develop knowledge about whose bodies are learning, and the relationship between body, pedagogy and learning as it is defined and used in research literature as well as in practice.

Introducing the body into pedagogy and learning marks a departure from cognitive learning theories and towards a more real-world grappling with subjectivity and positive experience. Nevertheless, people can feel alienated and disconnected by bodily learning, which sometimes provokes a personal experience of “deep learning” that transcends the subject content and can be experienced as uncomfortable or even painful. Knowledge about “embodied pedagogy” “, bodily learning” and “embodiment” can be constructed through examination of embodied pedagogy and/or bodily learning as a theoretical concept, as a concept in curricula and as a practical methodical phenomenon in teaching. The practice of teaching students takes place in meetings between bodies that give rise to different feelings, sensations and actions. These encounters take place and are anchored in sensuous, felt, and perceiving bodies. An investigation of the feelings that occur in embodied pedagogical practices is the basis of this volume. Our intention is to conduct critical inquiry that highlights institutional politics of the body as well as formal and informal encounters in a pedagogical context. We also encourage the pursuit of new knowledge about existential experiences and examples of educational practices that engage students in bodily learning, where privilege, values and cultural forms of teaching and learning are also addressed.

The main goal of this Research Topic is to gather new knowledge about:
1) Analysis and elaboration of theories of pedagogy, body, teaching and learning
2) Shared insights on different practices and didactical reflections in physical education
3) The effects of embedded power structures, privilege, gender and ethnicity on embodied pedagogy, teaching and learning in physical education.

We welcome submissions of the following article types: Empirical articles from didactical practices, theoretical articles that contribute to “unpacking” the concepts of “embodied pedagogy”, “bodily learning” and “embodiment.”

Keywords: Physical Education, Higher Education, Physical Education Teacher Education, Embodied Pedagogy, Bodily Learning

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