See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/248975817

Healthy Bodies: Construction of the Body and Health in Physical Education

Article  in  Sport Education and Society · November 2008

DOI: 10.1080/13573320802444960

CITATIONS READS

103 2,865

3 authors, including:

Mikael Quennerstedt Öhman Marie

The Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences Örebro University
123 PUBLICATIONS   2,459 CITATIONS    51 PUBLICATIONS   1,046 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Learning and exergames in school View project

Inclusion (and digital tools) in Physical Education and Health View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Mikael Quennerstedt on 06 April 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

This article was downloaded by: [University of Otago]
On: 29 October 2008
Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 788848536]
Publisher Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,
37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Sport, Education and Society

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713445505

Healthy bodies: construction of the body and health in physical education

Louisa Webb a; Mikael Quennerstedt b; Marie Öhman b
a
Loughborough University, UK b Örebro University, Sweden

Online Publication Date: 01 November 2008

To cite this Article Webb, Louisa, Quennerstedt, Mikael and Öhman, Marie(2008)'Healthy bodies: construction of the body and health
in physical education',Sport, Education and Society,13:4,353 — 372
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13573320802444960
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13573320802444960

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or
systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or
distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents
will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses
should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,
actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly
or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
 Sport, Education and Society
Vol. 13, No. 4, November 2008, pp. 353!372

Healthy bodies: construction of the

body and health in physical education
Louisa Webba*, Mikael Quennerstedtb and Marie Öhmanb
a
Loughborough University, UK; bÖrebro University, Sweden

In physical education, bodies are not only moved but made. There are perceived expectations for
bodies in physical education to be ‘healthy bodies’*for teachers to be ‘appropriate’ physical, fit,
healthy and skilful ‘role models’ and for students to display a slim body that is equated with fitness
and health. In teachers’ monitoring of students with the intention of regulating health behaviour,
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

however, the surveillance of students’ bodies and associated assumptions about health practices are
implicated in the (re)production of the ‘cult of the body’. In this paper, we consider issues of
embodiment and power in a subject area where the visual and active body is central and we use data
from Australian and Swedish schools to analyse the discourses of health and embodiment in
physical education. In both Swedish and Australian physical education there were discourses
related to a fit healthy body and an at risk healthy body. These discourses also acted through a
range of techniques of power, particularly regulation and normalisation.

Keywords: Power; Embodiment; Poststructuralism; Physical education

Introduction
In physical education, bodies are not only moved but also made. Bodies are moved in
and out of change rooms, through various paces in lessons and bodies are exposed in
ways unique to the subject area. Bodies interact constantly in different ways and
physicality can thus be regarded as a primary aspect of physical education. Through
these practices students’ and teachers’ bodies are also ‘made’*constructed through
discourses as, for example, particular genders, abilities and shapes. Bodies are also
constructed through the display or absence of certain markers of health (or ill health)
that are social, cultural and historical constructs. There are perceived expectations
for bodies in physical education to be ‘healthy bodies’*for teachers to be
‘appropriate’ physical, fit, healthy and skillful ‘role models’ and for students to
display a slim/fit body that is often equated to health (Macdonald & Kirk, 1999;
Gard, 2004; Johns, 2005; Kirk, 2006). This raises the question of how the healthy or
fit body is ‘read’ in physical education and in everyday life. Without the results of a
fitness test (the accuracy of which has also been questioned, Cale & Harris, 2005;
Harris & Cale, 2006) the temptation is to judge a person’s fitness and health from
their body shape (Kirk & Colquhoun, 1989). In this paper, we use the convention of
‘slim/fit’ body to acknowledge the tendency for these terms to be conflated. For

*Corresponding author. School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, Loughborough University,

Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK. Email: L.A.Webb@lboro.ac.uk

ISSN 1357-3322 (print)/ISSN 1470-1243 online/08/040353-20 # 2008 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13573320802444960
 354 L. Webb et al.

example, Rich and Evans (2005) reported that the students in their study perceived
that physical education teachers equated being thin with being fit and healthy. In
teachers’ monitoring of students with the intention of regulating health behaviour,
the surveillance of students’ bodies and associated assumptions about health
practices are implicated in the (re)production of the ‘cult of the body’ that in turn
can lead to problems such as eating disorders and exercise addiction (Johns & Johns,
2000; Brace-Govan, 2002; Tinning & Glasby, 2002; Evans et al., 2004b) physical
education can thus be seen as an important location through which bodies and health
are constructed (Wright, 1996; Kirk, 1998; Armour, 1999; Evans, 2003; Olofsson,
2005; Shilling, 2005).
This paper discusses data from schools in Australia and Sweden, two countries
renowned for the historical importance of physical education, to analyse the
discourses of health and embodiment prevalent in physical education and further
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

to discuss the techniques of power influential in these processes. Our analysis is

guided by poststructural theory and the work of Foucault (1977, 1978, 1980, 1988,
2000), and in this article we use Foucault’s work as a tool where certain concepts are
used in a methodological respect. We define discourses as sets of meanings that are
produced through written, spoken and/or visual representations (including media
images, styles of dress, ways of moving, and patterns of consumption) and that
circulate and constitute knowledge around the cultural and social practices of
communities and institutions (Kirk, 1992; Blackmore, 1999; Wright, 1999; Edley,
2001). In The history of sexuality Foucault (1978, p. 97) asks:
How did (certain practices) make possible these kinds of discourses, and
conversely, how were these discourses used to support power relations? How was
the action of these power relations modified by their very exercise, entailing a
strengthening of some terms and a weakening of others, with effects of resistance
and counterinvestments, so that there has never existed one type of stable
subjugation, given once and for all?

Within this paper, we refer at times to ‘dominant discourse/s’. This term is used
keeping in mind Foucault’s own warning: ‘we must not imagine a world of discourse
divided between accepted discourse and excluded discourse, or between the
dominant discourse and the dominated one; but as a multiplicity of discursive
elements that can come into play in various strategies’ (1978, p. 100).
Some of the discourses at work in the physical education culture include
discourses of performance and discipline, discourses of gendered performance,
discourses of slender bodies mixed with discourses of fitness (slender body"fit
body"healthy body), discourses of ‘academic’ versus ‘practical’ subjects and
discourses of docility-utility (producing useful and obedient bodies). The physical
education culture operates in a unique space where students’ bodies take on different
attire (gym clothes, swimmers) and there are permissions to break the normative
discourses of other subjects where students sit at desks and are expected to work
quietly. In physical education there is noise versus silence, there is movement versus
stillness, and bodies are touching or touched.
 Healthy bodies 355

Discourses can, following Foucault, be seen as historical systematic descriptions

within the language, which through various inclusions and exclusions create specific
patterns and regularities in a given setting. Discourses can then be said to concern
language use or possible language use in different types of situations or settings. For
example, in the way in which we speak or act in a given situation, there are certain
aspects which are chosen and others which are not (Foucault, 1978, 1980). The
subject of physical education in schools can be seen as an institutional practice where
different discourses on body and health are constituted in, and of, the actions that
take place. This implies that the institutionalised discourses, the framework of
meaning, are something one must relate to by orienting oneself to*to follow, resist,
stand up against or ignore (Quennerstedt, 2008). It can be fruitful then to study the
context in terms of institutionalised discourses, which encompasses a specific
practice. Through the study of patterns and regularities in physical education, we
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

can illustrate the discourses of body and health in the school subject. The following
question is then, how can we understand that certain actions are privileged and
favoured within the institutionalised practice? Here we will add the question of
power.

The power mechanisms of discourse

When one takes a discourse theoretical approach as we are doing here, the concept of
power is an ‘implicit’ part of the discourse terminology (Hall, 2001). In this article
Foucault’s concept of power is used in a methodological sense, as a tool in our
analyses. We consequently join with researchers, for example Deacon (2003, p. 275),
who claim that ‘Foucault sought to develop an ‘‘analytics’’, as opposed to a ‘‘theory’’,
of power, by not saying what power is but instead showing how it operates, concretely
and historically, in the form of strategic relations aimed at governing subjects’.
In his work Foucault maintains that power is an aspect of discourses in the sense
that power can be regarded as a guideline, i.e. that which guides our actions. The
concept of power should be seen as a relational concept and addresses relations
between different actions, i.e. power relations (Foucault, 2000). These relations of
power are something productive and make certain actions possible whereas others
are limited (Foucault, 1980). Foucault states that power
. . . operates on the field of possibilities in which the behaviour of active subjects is
able to inscribe itself. It is a set of actions; it incites, it induces, it seduces, it makes
easier or more difficult; it releases or contrives, makes more probable or less; in the
extreme, it constrains or forbids absolutely, but it is always a way of acting upon one
or more acting subjects by virtue of their acting or being capable of action. A set of
actions upon other actions. (2000, p. 341)

This implies that when individuals act, they do so in relation to previous acts (what
the teacher says, what peers might say, what they themselves have done previously,
parents actions, the various activities which make up the lesson, authoritative
documents, traditions or that which makes sense in the situation). It is this process
 356 L. Webb et al.

which, through systematic inclusion and exclusion, forms patterns and regularities
within certain practices.
With regard to institutionalised discourses it is important to maintain that relations
of power operate within an area of what is conceivable, or rather that there are certain
‘shoulds’. It can be said that relations of power serve as guidelines for our actions.
Through the study of power relations one can form a better understanding of how
individuals act and present themselves. This means analysing actions within a given
practice. It is in this type of context that Foucault’s concept of power becomes
central, in that he means that it is in the uttering of truths, in what is indicated and
what is decided upon, and in the regularities of action that power is produced. We
can see it as a way in which certain special actions structure or make up a field of
other possible actions. This is the reason why power relations become so deeply
rooted in institutional contexts*not as a supplementary structure extraneous to
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

society and the institution, but rather that ‘some can act on the actions of others’
(Foucault, 2000, p. 343).
Before we discuss the empirical material there is one additional clarification to
make. Since we intend to study institutional discourses in physical education, we
must develop an approach that allows for the consideration of different aspects of
action within an institutional practice, i.e. an analytical focus that enables us to study
one dimension of action within a practice without necessarily disregarding other
aspects. It can be formulated as follows: how can we, by means of the study of
institutionalised discourses understand individual’s actions regarding body and
health? The consideration of techniques of power makes an important contribution
to this understanding.
Webb and Macdonald (2007b) outline the techniques of power operating in
physical education using a framework outlined by Gore (1998) and Wright (2000)
based on the work of Foucault. When considering embodiment in physical
education, this framework helps to explain the powerful workings of discourses.
The eight techniques of power are surveillance, normalisation, exclusion, classifica-
tion, distribution, individualisation, totalisation and regulation. Normalisation,
classification, totalisation and regulation are directly linked to the messages that
are portrayed through discourses, leading to ‘a powerful urge to behave in certain
ways, to mark out the boundaries of the proper. Indeed the efficacy of disciplinary
practices may be greatest when they appear not as external demands on the
individual but as self-generated and self-policed behaviours’ (Shildrick, 1997, p. 54).
The mechanisms of normalisation, classification, totalisation and regulation are
reinforced through, and evidenced by, surveillance, exclusion and distribution.
Individualisation as a technique of power provides space for opposition to dominant
discourses.
In considering power and embodiment in the construction of healthy bodies in
physical education, we are concerned with some of the practices and experiences of
the teachers and students in physical education that reinforce some problematic
discourses in the subject area. Through the following research questions we hope to
raise awareness of areas for concern in physical education:
 Healthy bodies 357

. Through what discourses are healthy bodies constructed in practices of physical

education?
. What are the techniques of power by which healthy bodies are constructed?

By using Foucault we can consequently point at possibilities and limitations of

dominating discourses related to healthy bodies in physical education. Using a
variety of empirical material in different contexts, we can further point at how various
actions regarding healthy bodies come into play and become more powerful than
others.

Method
A range of participants and data collection methods informed our analyses. In
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

Australia, teachers participated in semi-structured interviews about their work and

observations were collected of the school environment. In Sweden questionnaires,
local curriculum documents and video recordings of physical education lessons were
analysed. The methods in each country will be outlined further below. The use of
different contexts and different empirical materials helps us in identifying dominant
discourses of body and health, and also reasonable actions related to these
discourses. Our point is thus not to give a comprehensive picture of healthy bodies
in the Swedish or Australian contexts, but to illustrate how particular and culturally
specific dominant discourses related to healthy bodies come into play in different
physical education contexts.
In Australia, qualitative data were collected through field observations, document
review and interviews and were analysed through an inductive approach with theme
coding, constant comparison, and discourse analysis (Crotty, 1998; Angrosino &
Mays de Perez, 2000; Wright, 2000). The key method of data collection was
interviews that generated transcripts for analysis. The other methods provided
context to aid understanding of the interview transcripts.
The 17 participants were a purposive sample (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994) of
female and male physical education Heads of Department (HODs) and physical
education teachers in local secondary schools (age 13!17) around a metropolitan city
in Queensland, Australia. Pseudonyms were used to ensure anonymity of the
participants. The sample consisted of four female and four male physical education
teachers (Gail, Julie, Alison, Michelle, Cameron, Darren, Jeff and Simon) plus three
male and six female HODs (Jason, Andrew, Brad, Kristy, Sharon, Megan, Sally,
Anna and Janelle).
The interview questions covered topics such as career path, career influences,
career aspirations and decisions, perceived career barriers, balance of work and non-
work life, culture and context of physical education in the school, the nature of day-
to-day work and aspects of the work environment including power relationships.
Embodied aspects of their work and health were part of the discussions with the
teachers about their work and lives. The schools where the participants worked were
important contexts in the research, therefore, the context of the school, the staffroom
 358 L. Webb et al.

climate, the nature of day-to-day decisions, patterns of interaction and the rapport
between the participant and the school community were observed.
In Sweden local curriculum documents and video recordings were used for the
discourse analysis, complemented with questionnaires. The material was collected in
connection with a national evaluation of physical education in Sweden commissioned
by the Government and the Swedish national agency for education (Eriksson et al.,
2003). The sample of the evaluation was a national random sample of 200 schools in
the nine-year compulsory school. Questionnaires from 152 headmasters, 142
physical education teachers and local curriculum document from 72 schools were
collected. Also questionnaires from students from 20 of the schools, plus video
recorded physical education lessons from five schools were used (Eriksson et al.,
2003).
The local curriculum documents (‘local work plans’ and ‘local grading criteria’)
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

are regarded as important documents in the Swedish school system which as

Wahlström (2002) points out, can be seen as a goal and achievement oriented
organisation managed by objectives and results. In the local curriculum documents
teachers express the purposes, the goals and the ways the teacher together with the
students work towards the nationally set goals (Quennerstedt, 2006). The
documents also constitute a picture of the common and collective values the
different school subjects stand for. The documents from the 72 schools in the study
are thus seen as reports of the subject content in terms of discourses institutionalised
in the practice of physical education.
The video recorded physical education lessons are based on 15 video recorded
physical education lessons, in five Swedish compulsory basic schools. The physical
education-teachers in the five schools were requested to choose school classes where
parents and pupils had consented to participate in the research, and also choose with
regards to a variation in age of pupils. The children were between seven and 16 years
of age and 12 teachers were involved in the video recordings. The activities, which
took place during the 15 recorded lessons, were fitness and muscle training, i.e.
training of muscular development (seven lessons), ball games (eight lessons),
gymnastics (two lessons) and rope skipping (two lessons). Some lessons consisted
of a combination of these activities, for example, rope skipping and training of
muscular strength, or ball games and fitness training during the same lesson. Focus
of analysis in the video recordings was in what way teachers and students’ talk and
act during the lessons and what knowledge about healthy bodies is expressed.
In both Australia and Sweden, the main method of data treatment was discourse
analysis (Clarke, 1992; Lupton, 1992; Gee, 1999; Parker, 1999; Wright, 2000;
Carabine, 2001; Macdonald et al., 2002). Through discourse analysis, ‘texts’ such as
documents, interview transcripts, video recordings and observations were analysed
for patterns in various discursive effects of power working in, on and through
institutions and cultural and social practices. The diversity of texts from the two
international contexts in this way provides a multifaceted view of the construction of
the body and health in physical education.
 Healthy bodies 359

We followed a procedure based on the work of Gee (1999) and Carabine (2001) to
complete a sustained and detailed analysis of the data. The themes and discourses
that were analysed were informed by previous literature as reviewed earlier in the
paper and also an emergent design where the researchers were open to new
revelations. Across the larger research projects a range of discourses were found to be
influential in physical education (Quennerstedt & Sundberg, 2004; Öhman, 2007;
Quennerstedt, 2006; Webb and Macdonald, 2007a). In relation to the specific
question we pose about the discourses of ‘healthy bodies’, however, our analysis
revealed that themes within the data were related to what could be described as
‘fitness’ discourses and ‘risk’ discourses. This will be elaborated upon in the next
section.
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

Results and discussion

Our research provides information on physical education in two international
contexts and considers the experiences of both teachers and students. Across the
data collected, a range of discourses were evident in physical education. In the
Swedish material fitness and risk constituted the dominating discourses. In the
curriculum documents there was also evidence of other discourses, but to a very
small extent (Quennerstedt, 2006). These alternate discourses, though, were not
evident in the video recorded physical education lessons (Öhman, 2007). In the
Australian context, there were also fitness discourses and risk discourses related to
the experiences of the teachers such as the physicality of the work, concerns about
sun damage and expectations about the image of the physical education teacher.
Overall both differences and similarities were found between the two contexts. The
results concurred with concerns in the literature (for example, Johns & Johns, 2000;
Brace-Govan, 2002; Tinning & Glasby, 2002; Evans et al., 2004a; Fusco, 2006;
Kirk, 2006) about the problematic relationship between healthy body discourses and
the physical, mental, social and emotional health of teachers and students in physical
education. The following sections will outline both the results from the two contexts,
and also illustrate how dominant discourses related to healthy bodies operate in the
different physical education contexts.

The construction of the body and health in Sweden

In the analyses of the Swedish material our interests were directed towards how the
body and health are constituted within the institutional practice of Swedish physical
education. This is done through the analyses of regularities and patterns in local
curricula, in what teachers and students say and what they do during lessons. The
studies consequently show the strong presence of fitness discourses, and also risk
discourses are evident in the empirical material.
 360 L. Webb et al.

Fitness discourses. The dominating discourse regarding health and body in the local
curriculum documents and the video recordings was a fitness discourse. The
discourse is distinguished by a subject content aiming to promote life long physical
activity, to give physical training and knowledge about physical training.
Analyses of local curricula illustrate that health is focused on regular physical
activity, which is motivated by the benefits of the activity. Physical training and the
importance of regular exercise, muscular training and the creation of training
programmes are actions promoted within this health perspective. The pupil is
expected to ‘. . . have an understanding of the concept of training and also have the
ability to form an individual training programme which maintains or improves
health. . .’ (local syllabus, compulsory school).
The health perspective implies, to a great extent, that the students are to gain an
understanding of the association between diet, exercise, rest, and general well-being.
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

This is justified by applying physiological guidelines which state that physical exercise
is healthy. Students are to understand ‘the connection between food, exercise and
health by means of receiving regular physiological explanations and definitions of
training’ (Local syllabus, compulsory school).
It is then the activities’ influence on the biological body that is focused on from a
health perspective, and the fact that health is something that is developed within the
physical activities seems to be something taken for granted. The activities stated are
different forms of physical activities aiming towards effective fitness training, mainly
aerobic capacity. The activities also aim for the students to ‘. . . develop a lasting
interest in regular physical activity and take responsibility for their health (. . .
through. . .) trying many different forms of training ( . . . and through . . .) discussions
about the relation between sports and health’ (local curriculum, compulsory school).
The perspective on health in the fitness discourse has a preventive character with a
focus on preventing risks, injuries and disease connected with poor aerobic capacity,
poor muscular strength and a physically inactive lifestyle. The relation between
physical activity and health is thus described in terms of a physiological relation, and
in terms of that there is only one possible way to see that relation.
During the physical education lessons, knowledge based on physiology and
anatomy is dominating when the teachers talk about the body. The teachers often
talk about how muscles are developed, how they function and how students are to
carry out the most effective ways of improving their strength and aerobic capacity. In
lessons with fitness and muscle training the teachers often ask about the names of the
muscles, and it seems important to know the Latin name of the muscles. Teacher:
‘Which muscle works when doing push-ups?’ Student: ‘The upper arm muscles’.
Teacher: ‘What is the name of it?’ Student: ‘Biceps’. Teacher, pointing at the arm:
‘Yes, and Triceps’. Teachers do most of the talking in the recorded lessons, but an
example of when a student talks is when she asks the teacher: ‘What is the name of
that muscle, I have forgotten?’ In the same lesson with fitness and muscular training,
two students sit and talk on a bench resting 30 seconds before the next activity, one
student says to the other: ‘Denise, show your muscles to Eve! Look Eve, look at
 Healthy bodies 361

Denise’s muscles, aren’t they huge?’. This also illustrates the importance of
knowledge based on physiology and anatomy in physical education.
In another lesson with fitness and muscle training, rope skipping is one of the
activities. The teacher turns to one pupil and asks: ‘Betty, what happened to your
body when you had skipped 50 times?’ Betty: ‘Tough’. Teacher: ‘Yes, tough, isn’t it?
It is tough to skip, the whole body works, you get a higher heart rate and you get the
blood circulating’. At the same lesson one pupil says: ‘This is tough and strenuous’.
Teacher: ‘Tired and sweaty? That’s the point’. Another example is a lesson with
fitness and muscular training, the teacher asks: ‘Can you tell me what’s important to
do in the morning before having physical activities?’ Student: ‘To eat breakfast’.
Teacher: ‘Yes, to eat breakfast is very important. It is like a car, if the car doesn’t get
any petrol, it doesn’t work. It is exactly the same with the body, isn’t it? Without
breakfast, it is hard to exercise’.
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

The teachers also often use imperatives to guide the students in a specific
direction: to encourage the students to be active. The teachers encourage the
students to work their bodies to the best of their abilities, and emphasise the
importance of keeping going, trying your best and getting stuck in. Common
utterances among the teachers are; ‘Work hard! Keep going and well done!!’ If any of
the students seem to rest or take it easy the teachers, in some cases, say: ‘Come on,
you are not tired yet, are you? Would you please work a little bit more?’ The teachers
very often praise the students with utterances like; ‘good’, ‘well done’, and ‘an
excellent piece of work’, when the students are active and exert themselves.
However, it is not just the talk about the body, it is also the work done by bodies
through exercise that produces ‘healthy bodies’. In all lessons but one, push-ups, sit-
ups and high jumps are on the schedule. These activities happen either in the
beginning of the ball lessons as warming up activities, or in the end of lessons as a
final event. Also during the lessons where students are involved in various ball games,
the teachers give instructions in technique and rules of play. Even if techniques and
rules are considered as being important, however, the main point of the activity is still
to work as much as you can with your body. It seems as the main point is not about
winning the actual game, but rather that those who sweat the most are considered the
winners. Even if the teachers sometimes notice a student who has scored, the
encouragement goes to everybody who does their best and works hard. The type of
activity seems not to be important, as long as the student does not remain inactive.

Risk discourses. In the analysis a discourse comes to the foreground that partly
overlaps and partly differentiates itself from the fitness discourse, namely a risk
discourse. The discourse is distinguished by activities aiming for identifying,
preventing and managing different risks and injuries. Here health is about preventing
various injuries and also focusing on questions that involve ergonomics, work
environment, hygiene, safety, warming up and stretching. The students are, for an
example, supposed to: ‘Know the causes for work related injuries and diseases and be
able to rehabilitate them’ (local curriculum, compulsory school).
 362 L. Webb et al.

This risk aspect is also made apparent in the video analysis as instructions are given
on carrying out physical exercises ergonomically correctly. In one of the muscle
training performances, where the students are meant to bend their knees carrying a
heavy ball, the teacher walks up to the student. The teacher lifts the students back,
and points out that it is very important to work with a straight back, otherwise there
is no load on quadriceps. In this setting it also seems like the students movements are
to be performed in a ‘correct’ way where it exists a form of standard for the
performance to avoid risking injuries to the back. The teacher says after showing the
wrong way to do the exercise: ‘It is the worst thing you can do for your backs’.
Some of the curriculum documents also bring attention to the risk of bad hygiene
in relation to health. The students should learn to shower, have knowledge about
hygiene and learn to take own responsibility for their hygiene. It is then considered
important that students for their health learn the basics of good hygiene e.g.
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

showering and changing clothes in connection with physical activity: ‘Have knowl-
edge of general hygiene*showering’ (local curriculum, compulsory school).
Showering is sometimes even part of the requirements of an approved pass level in
the subject.
The risk discourse aligns with the fitness discourse in the way they both focus on
the individual, biological aspects of the body with reference point in the natural
sciences mainly physiology and anatomy. However, it differs in that it has a more
clear preventative approach. It also shows a different language use to describe how
movements are to be carried out in for examples an ergonomically correct way, and
that the activities don’t necessarily have to include training of physical fitness.

Healthy bodies. In our study, Swedish physical education is dominated by discourses

in relation to healthy bodies that are characterised by physical training, the
importance of regular exercise, risk prevention, healthy lifestyles and knowledge
about physical training. This generates a lot of both possibilities and limitations. The
content is distinguished by actions promoting a high level of physical activity, good
fitness training and the development of knowledge based on information from mainly
physiology or anatomy*‘disciplines that have the imprimatur of ‘expert’ knowledge
and consequently present health knowledge uncritically as certain, universally
applicable and uncontestable’ (Wright & Burrows, 2004, p. 215).
In the fitness and risk discourses there is an individual, biological and mechanical
healthy body that is constituted. Health is then regarded as an individual state in
absence of disease, where the individual is responsible for his or her health. There is
also a clear instrumental view on the healthy body, the relation between activity and
health, and on the kind of knowledge about health and body that is to be developed.
On the other hand, alternative healthy body also discourses focusing, for example,
on social development is also distinguished in the material. Healthy bodies are then
constituted in relational, communicative and social terms and not only as individual,
instrumental and biological as in the discourses of fitness and risk. This alternative
healthy body, however, is seen to a small extent in the material. These patterns are
about social well-being and are distinguished by good relations during physical
 Healthy bodies 363

education lessons. Students are supposed to understand that ‘. . . consideration,

humility and respect for others affect the well-being of the group’ (local curriculum,
compulsory school).The students shall also develop knowledge of how social
relations and social patterns in society affect health, and be able to use their
knowledge to take a stand in different social health issues. Students are further
supposed to ‘. . . develop their awareness in environmental and health issues, and
understand that many people live under different circumstances than themselves’
(local curriculum, compulsory school). Although the local curriculum documents
encourage the students to understand the socio-cultural influences on health, the
practices of the teachers do not seem to extend to encouraging the students to reflect
critically on fitness discourses or the role of sport in society.
In Swedish physical education a healthy body is consequently to a large extent
constituted on the base of fact from physiology and anatomy. A consequence of these
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

‘apparent facts’ or ‘regimes of truth’ (Foucault, 1980), which we also can see in the
analyses, is that reflections on the practical activities are lacking. In taking certain
knowledge and truths for granted we can assume that the content and the actual
learning in the subject also are taken for granted, and do not need any reflection or
discussion. It seems to be that a strong emphasis on exercising the body results in
reduced opportunities for reflection and dialogue. This lacking of discussions and
dialogues, indicate a taken for granted atmosphere in physical education. In this
sense, it is easy to understand why the students very seldom ask questions to the
teachers, or have a discussion. It seems as the strong emphasis on not to remain
inactive and the importance of regular exercise are mainly concerned with creating
habits within students (Watkins, 2005). This results in reduced opportunities for
different opinions and perspectives, and that other perspectives on health, body, and
physical activity receive very little attention.

The construction of the body and health in Australia

Australian physical education teachers operate within a range of discourses that
revolve around the use of the teacher’s body as a tool of work (Webb & Macdonald,
2008). In contrast to Sweden, physical education classes in Australia tend to be
taught outdoors so indoor facilities are not as common. Australia also has one of the
highest rates of skin cancer in the world (Dobbinson et al., 2005). Throughout the
Australian teachers’ experiences, fitness discourses and risk discourses were evident.

Fitness discourses. The fitness discourses for the Australian physical education
teachers operated in the expectations they felt to be physically engaged with their
work and the expectations they felt to be ‘healthy’ role models with the right body
shape and youthful energy. The issue of ageing was influential in multiple ways. It
was seen to be related to a potential to feel too tired for the physical demands of the
work. Some of the female participants also expressed a gendered dimension to the
 364 L. Webb et al.

concept of ‘getting too old for physical education’. In the next section on risk
discourses the link between ageing and the risk of sun cancer will be discussed.
Some of the participants expressed expectations that they felt to be physically
engaged in their work. In terms of possibilities and limitations, the physicality of the
work was both motivating and frustrating. Jason shared that his motivation for
teaching physical education was to be doing things that are physical and ‘teaching the
kids about the physical’. Brad referred to both the physicality of physical education
work and the negatives of working outdoors:
I’ve known other phys eds who get out of it, they get sick of being outside and
having their hair all over the place . . . you no longer think of yourself as windswept
and interesting, its just a pain in the neck.
Being a phys ed takes just so much energy, you’ve got to provide your energy for a
lot of the students that don’t want to be there.
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

Michelle said, ‘You have to be more energetic than the average teacher’ and Gail
concurs that her idea of a physical education teacher is ‘someone who is physically
involved’.
There was a link between comments on ageing and the physical nature of physical
education teachers’ work. On this issue, Gail says,
I don’t know if it’s too old as in an age, I don’t know what that age is, but I do know
that there will come a time that you physically get too tired doing that energetic
work every single day. . . . I realistically don’t see myself at 50 or 60 running around
at that age still wanting to play soccer and netball and whatever else . . . as you get
older, it’s too taxing.

Michelle concurs, ‘I don’t want to be chasing grade 8 and 9 boys around the oval
when I’m 60. . . . When I feel like I just want to sit under a tree and watch, then I’m
too old’. Not all the participants responded in similar ways to this issue, reinforcing
the challenge to dominant discourses. Anna was an example of one of the
participants who was able to rupture the dominant discourses around the ‘young,
physical’ body: ‘I don’t think you need to be young and physical to be a good phys ed
teacher and I think I’m a really good role model for that’.
The participants acknowledged the power of fitness discourses in the subject area
in terms of expectations of the ‘appropriate’ appearance of a physical education
teacher. In the case of Gail, she both resisted and was seduced by the dominant
discourses of the slender fit body. Gail referred to herself as an example of a different
sort of body shape: ‘I say to the kids, ‘‘well, not all phys eds are thin, tall and fast
runners’’’. Even so, the pervasive power of those discourses are influential and she
adds ‘it would be good if I was 10 kilos lighter’. Possibly referring to this contestation
she says, ‘I suppose, yeah, maybe fighting a little bit of stereotyping . . . what a phys ed
teacher should be like or look like’. Participants in Macdonald’s (1993) research had
a strong sense of what male and female physical education teacher education
students ‘looked like’, reinforcing the strength of discourses on this issue. This raises
concerns about messages for self-control and bodily maintenance that circulate in the
 Healthy bodies 365

practices of physical education. Although, exacerbated in physical education, these

regimes are also prevalent in the wider society. Kirk (1997, p. 54) refers to the effects
of visual media, in both televisual and popular magazine forms as the main conduits
for transmitting images and representations of the body: ‘the conjunction of
representations of bodies with the consumption of products (through advertising)
has created desire for corporeal normality and a consequent willingness to submit to
self-imposed regulatory regimes such as dieting and exercising’.
It is within this context that Gail is operating in a very complex way. This is
evidenced by the way she is almost simultaneously in opposition to and agreement
with dominant discourses of the slim/fit body. A participant in Macdonald’s (1993)
research also evidenced the complexity of the effects of power on her actions in ways
she both agreed and disagreed with the dominant discourses. She was able to stand
back and see herself as ‘other’ to the dominant image of trendy clothes and slimness
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

yet she still complied with the bodily discipline of running every day.

Risk discourses. The tendency to teach outdoors in Australia raised issues about the
risk to health from sun damage and skin cancer. In the previous section, the issue of
ageing was discussed and the risk of sun cancer is related by its tendency to develop
as the body ages. In the comments of the participants, dominant risk discourses were
both supported and resisted.
As well as declining ability to perform, ageing for physical education teachers in
Australia is connected to concerns about extended sun exposure and skin cancer
because of the tendency for classes to be taught outdoors. Jeff expressed concern
about working outdoors and the risk of skin cancer: ‘I think there’s personal health
issues, skin cancers, etc. I don’t think schools or the education department do
enough to recognise that’. Various teachers mentioned the desirability of teaching
indoors because of concerns about the sun. Julie explained:
So many people I know have had sun spots cut out. I’m starting to worry about it.
Every day being in the sun. I really love teaching theory. More and more as I’m
getting older, I like teaching theory a lot more. I think I shouldn’t be as phys ed
teacher anymore if that’s the way I feel. I really dread some days, going and doing
prac. I would love to teach Health. . . . I’m really moving more and more away from
teaching outdoors.

Michelle mentioned that she was lucky that the school had an indoor sports centre,
so she did minimal teaching outside.
In the examples above, the participants reproduce dominant discourses about the
health risks of sun exposure but other examples indicate spaces to manage these
risks. This factor was experienced slightly differently between the HODs and the
teachers. Andrew, Sally, Anna and Brad were all HODs who were concerned about
the sun but mentioned that this was less of an issue because HODs have a reduced
teaching load. They structured their teaching times and spaces to avoid the middle of
the day, but not at the expense of their teachers. Due to this context for HODs, they
did not see themselves necessarily getting ‘too old’ for teaching physical education.
 366 L. Webb et al.

They mainly suggested that they would wait and see, and keep going as long as they
enjoy the work and have the energy to remain physically involved. The male and
female HODs were very similar in their opinions on this issue.
Macdonald (1995, p. 139) found that teachers were leaving teaching due to
dissatisfaction with work conditions rather than reasons such as ‘getting out of the
sun’. Similarly, some teachers in this research were resisting the risk discourses that
might influence their career decisions. Kristy mentioned, ‘if I decide to get out of
Phys Ed I don’t think it will be an age thing, I think it will be, well, now where am I
going from here? What else could I do?’ Alison shared that in her career decisions,
‘the sun is not the issue’. Anna stated, ‘I don’t think I’d stop the job because of (the
sun)’.

Healthy bodies. As in the Swedish data, discourses of fitness and risk were evident in
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

the construction of healthy bodies in the Australian data. In the Australian context,
however, where the focus was on the experiences of the physical education teachers,
the workings of the fitness and risk discourses were evidenced through some different
examples. The issue of sun exposure and skin cancer was also unique to the
Australian context.
The nature of physical education teachers’ work and the healthy body discourses
that circulate in the practices of the subject area had various effects on the physical,
mental, social and emotional health of the teachers. This included exhaustion,
frustration, worry, job dissatisfaction, feelings of exclusion, feeling pressure to be
thinner and heightened self-consciousness.

Techniques of power constructing healthy bodies in physical education

Discourses of the body and health are influential in the subject of physical education
because the topic of study is the human body and health, teachers work with and on
student bodies to create the conditions for an active healthy lifestyle, and the teacher
uses their own ‘healthy’ body as a tool of their work (Webb & Macdonald, 2008).
Our data have evidenced a range of discourses that are present in Swedish and
Australian physical education that construct particular healthy bodies. Particularly in
both Swedish and Australian physical education are discourses related to a fit healthy
body (i.e. fitness, aerobic capacity, ageing, body shape), and an at risk healthy body
(i.e. from disease, injury, obesity, the sun, bad hygiene). The fit healthy body and the
at risk healthy body can, following Foucault (2000), be seen as a result of previous
actions the participants (pupils and teachers) act upon in the practice of physical
education by means of ‘a set of actions upon other actions’ (p. 341). It is mainly these
healthy bodies that create a taken for granted atmosphere about what a healthy body
should be, and how a healthy body should act in the practice of physical education.
With these power relations follows possibilities and limitations of action in this
particular setting e.g. how to act as a role model as a teacher, what subject content to
chose from a health perspective, how pupils act during lessons or how discourses of
 Healthy bodies 367

fitness and risk work to try to produce obedient, useful bodies (‘docility-utility’,
Foucault, 1977, p. 137) that can work productively and reduce the health costs of the
government. By using insights from Foucault in studying different physical education
practices we can, in this way, point at dominating discourses and reasonable actions
for teachers as well as pupils in relation to healthy bodies.
In bringing together our analyses of Swedish and Australian physical education we
can illustrate how dominant discourses related to healthy bodies come into play in
different physical education contexts. To further develop how certain actions become
prominent in the practice of physical education, our attention now turns to the
techniques of power that are influential in these processes. Following on from Gore
(1998), Wright (2000), Webb et al., (2004) and Webb and Macdonald (2008) we are
interested to analyse how the mechanisms of normalisation, classification, totalisa-
tion and regulation are reinforced through and evidenced by, surveillance, exclusion
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

and distribution. We found that in the construction of healthy bodies in Swedish and
Australian physical education, that normalisation and regulation were particularly
prevalent techniques of power.
Foucault’s references to normalisation as a function of modern disciplinary power
in Discipline and Punish (1977) are used by Gore to define this technique of power as
‘invoking, requiring, setting, or conforming to a standard*defining the normal’
(1998, p. 237). Certain forms of truths achieve dominance through normalisation
(Shildrick, 1997). In the case of healthy bodies in physical education, these forms of
truth include notions about the global risk of obesity unless action is taken to exercise
and control the diet in order to be fit and thin (Evans, 2003; Gard, 2004).
The assumptions within the Swedish curricula that provide an unquestioned
perspective that physical exercise is healthy, is an example of normalisation as a
technique of power. The influences of this normalisation are evident by the way that
the students comply with the instructions. One can say that ‘the institution is silent’;
it is a form of agreement going on where there are no hesitations. If the individuals
concerned were not in agreement with the benefits of fitness training it would seem
completely pointless to lie on the floor and elevate and lower the body by bending
and straightening their arms until they experience muscular pain. But in that the
individuals have accepted the rules and procedure for this activity*to exercise the
body and become strong, there is also an understanding of the activity. Through the
general consensus of these rules, the relations of power come into effect, i.e. certain
knowledge and truths are regarded as being taken for granted.
Normalisation also operated in the case of Australian physical education teachers’
concerns about being appropriate role models. The perceived expectations they feel
are exacerbated by the situation that in Australia, teachers have been written into the
health-promoting schools literature not just in terms of teaching health content but
also by being expected to be ‘role models for good health’ (McMurray, 2003, p. 315).
The pressure of normalisation is also felt from the students, who are prime targets for
the commodification of exercise and health through popular media. Gail’s comment
is an example of this: ‘there is going to come a time where I’m going to be this older
 368 L. Webb et al.

person who’s not up and running around and as fit as what they (the students who
she teaches) want to see’.
In this way, in the apparent facts or in the taken for granted atmosphere in physical
education, power relationships become integral parts of institutional practices. And it
is in this type of context that Foucault’s concept of power becomes central; in the
uttering of truths, in what is indicated and what is decided upon, power is produced.
Through the general consensus and normalisation of these rules the relations of
power comes into effect, and Foucault points out that: ‘the relationship of power may
be an effect of a prior or permanent consent . . .’ (Foucault 2000, p. 340).
The discourses that function in the construction of healthy bodies in physical
education also operate through regulation as a technique of power. Foucault referred
to the workings of regulation as ‘the penetration of regulation into even the smallest
details of everyday life’ assuring ‘the capillary functioning of power’ (1977, p. 198).
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

Regulation was defined by Gore as ‘controlling by rule, subject to restrictions,

invoking a rule, including sanction, reward, punishment’ (1998, p. 243). Linguistic
examples of this include words such as ‘must’, ‘need to’, ‘have to’ and ‘should’
(Wright, 2000, p. 158).
In the context of healthy bodies in physical education, regulation as a technique of
power has often been described as ‘healthism’ (Lupton, 1995; Rich et al., 2004;
Quennerstedt, 2006). In evidencing healthism as a regulatory technique of power,
health is constituted as a goal itself, and a responsibility mainly for the individual.
Lupton (1995, p. 146) states that healthism is an ideology circulating in school
physical education and describes it as the
. . . valorization of fitness as leading to good health and the notion of good health as
emerging from careful control; technocratic rationality, emphasizing efficiency,
value-free facts, the control of time and the notion of the human body as a machine
and physical education as a ’science’ devised by ’experts’ and merely implemented
by teachers; and . . . a privileging of the fit, slim, muscular body. . .

This is evidenced in Swedish physical education through the focus on healthy bodies
as individual, biological and instrumental and also in the way that the body is seen as
machine, where risk is managed and based on facts from physiology and anatomy. In
addition, teachers in the physical education lessons exemplify regulation as a
technique of power as they oversee the fitness activities of the students.
In the case of the Australian physical education teachers we see an example of a
participant, Gail, who is paradoxically both refusing and accepting discourses
associated with healthism by stating that ‘not all phys eds are thin, tall and fast’ but
then admitting that it would be good if she was 10 kilograms lighter. In another
example we see the way that the regulatory mechanisms of power at work in risk
discourses create a sense of panic. Julie talks about how worried she is about being in
the sun every day. Regulation is a technology that targets individuals’ management of
their own relationship to risk. The principal of personal responsibility for one’s
healthy body is a powerful and pervasive discourse (Evans & Davies, 2004; Wright &
Burrows, 2004).
 Healthy bodies 369

In conclusion, teachers and students create meaning about the body and health by
means of their active participation in the various situations that constitute physical
education. It is in this context of discursive possibilities and limitations that they act
on the actions of selves and others (Foucault, 2000). In this way, our Foucauldian
analysis adds to the understanding of how a taken for granted practice regarding
healthy bodies inscribes certain actions of both pupils and teachers in the setting of
physical education. The discourses and the techniques of power identified in this
study can thus be said to constitute that which the teachers and students in physical
education, in some way, must relate to by orienting themselves towards, following,
contradicting, refusing or ignoring. The school subject physical education can thus
be said to encompass a number of discourses on body and health, and when taking
part in this institutional practice the participants are always oriented towards these
institutionalised discourses. We have, following Foucault, always the possibility to act
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

and even act differently, however, we are at the same time oriented towards those
discourses which, so to say, ‘exist’ in the practice or the situation in which we find
ourselves. Within an institutional practice or within a school subject, discourses can
be seen as the framework of meaning which creates possibilities and limitations for
what can be said and what can be done in the subject. Even if we resist against a
dominant discourse or ‘use’ other discourses to create meaning within the frame of a
certain practice, the framework of meaning makes up the context which the
resistance, in some way, originates from.
Finally, the results of this paper show that the construction of healthy bodies in
Swedish and Australian physical education privilege a fit healthy body, and an at risk
healthy body, mainly with normalisation and regulation as techniques of power.
Following Foucault (1977, 1978, 1980, 1988, 2000) the construction of healthy
bodies can be seen as an interplay between the individual and the surrounding which
the analysed discourses are a part of, and the institutionalised discourses on body
and health identified in this paper can thus be regarded as part of the process of
constituting ‘healthy bodies’. We in this way join with a range of voices in the
literature (for example, Gard & Wright, 2001; Evans, 2003; Gard, 2004; Wright &
Burrows, 2004; Kirk, 2006) calling for further critical reflection on a physical
education dominated by these discourses.

References
Angrosino, M. V. & Mays de Perez, K. A. (2000) Rethinking observation: from method to context,
in: N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds) Handbook of qualitative research (2nd edn) (London,
Sage), 673!702.
Armour, K. M. (1999) The case for a body-focus in education and physical education, Sport,
Education and Society, 4(1), 5!15.
Blackmore, J. (1999) Troubling women: feminism, leadership and educational change (Philadelphia, PA,
Open University Press).
Brace-Govan, J. (2002) Looking at bodywork: women and three physical activities, Journal of Sport
and Social Issues, 26(4), 403!420.
 370 L. Webb et al.

Cale, L. & Harris, J. (2005) Fitness testing and exercise promotion ! issues and recommendations,
in: L. Cale & J. Harris (Eds) Exercise and young people. Issues, implications and initiatives
(Basingstoke, UK, Palgrave Macmillan), 209!2231.
Carabine, J. (2001) Unmarried motherhood 1830!1990: a genealogical analysis, in: M. Wetherell,
S. Taylor & S. J. Yates (Eds) Discourse as data: a guide for analysis (London, The Open
University Press), 267!310.
Clarke, G. (1992) Learning the language: discourse analysis in physical education, in: A. C.
Sparkes (Ed.) Research in physical education and sport: exploring alternative visions (London,
Falmer), 146!166.
Crotty, M. (1998) The foundations of social research: meaning and perspective in the research process (St.
Leonards, NSW, Allen & Unwin).
Deacon, R. A. (2003) Fabricating Foucault. Rationalising the management of individuals (Milwaukee,
WI, Marquette University Press).
Dobbinson S., Doyle C. & Wakefield, M. (2005) Farmers’ and outdoor workers’ beliefs about skin
cancer and protection from summer sun: a brief report. CBRC Research Paper Series No. 18.
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

(Melbourne, Australia, Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer, The Cancer Council
Victoria, November 2005).
Edley, N. (2001) Analysing masculinity: interpretive repertoires, ideological dilemmas and subject
positions, in: M. Wetherell, S. Taylor & S. J. Yates (Eds) Discourse as data: a guide for analysis
(London, The Open University Press), 189!228.
Eriksson, C., Gustavsson, K., Johansson, T., Mustell, J., Quennerstedt, M., Rudsberg, K.,
Sundberg, M. & Svensson, L. (2003) Skolämnet Idrott och hälsa i Sveriges skolor ! en
utvärdering av läget hösten 2002 [Physical Education in Sweden an evaluation 2002] (Örebro,
Institutionen för idrott och hälsa, Örebro universitet).
Evans, J. (2003) Physical education and health: a polemic or ‘let them eat cake’!, European Physical
Education Review, 9(1), 87!101.
Evans, J. & Davies, B. (2004) Sociology, the body and health in a risk society, in: J. Evans, B.
Davies & J. Wright (Eds) Body knowledge and control: studies in the sociology of physical
education and health (London, Routledge), 35!51.
Evans, J., Rich, E. & Davies, B. (2004a) The emperor’s new clothes: fat, thin, and overweight. The
social fabrication of risk and ill health, Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 23, 372!391.
Evans, J., Rich, E. & Holroyd, R. (2004b) Disordered eating and disordered schooling: what
schools do to middle class girls, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25(2), 123!142.
Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.) (New York,
Pantheon).
Foucault, M. (1978) The history of sexuality. Volume one: an introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.) (New
York, Pantheon).
Foucault, M. (1980) Power/knowledge: selected interviews and other writings, 1972!1977 (C. Gordon,
L. Marshall, J. Mepham, K. Soper, Trans.) (New York, Pantheon).
Foucault, M. (1988) The ethic of care for the self as a practice of freedom. [Interview], in:
J. Bernauer & D. Rasmussen (Eds) The final Foucault (Cambridge, MA, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology Press), 1!20.
Foucault, M. (2000) Power. Essential works of Foucault, 1954!1984: volume three (J. D. Faubion, Ed.,
R. Hurley, Trans.) (New York, The New Press).
Fusco, C. (2006) Inscribing healthification: governance, risk, surveillance and the subjects and
spaces of fitness and health, Health & Place, 12, 65!78.
Gard, M. (2004) An elephant in the room and a bridge too far, or physical education and the
‘obesity epidemic, in: J. Evans, B. Davies & J. Wright (Eds) Body knowledge and control: studies
in the sociology of physical education and health (London, Routledge), 68!82.
Gard, M. & Wright, J. (2001) ‘Managing uncertainty’: obesity discourses and physical education in
a risk society, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 20(6), 535!549.
Gee, J. P. (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis: theory and method (London, Routledge).
 Healthy bodies 371

Gore, J. M. (1998) Disciplining bodies: on the continuity of power relations in pedagogy, in: T. S.
Popkewitz & M. Brennan (Eds) Foucault’s challenge: discourse, knowledge, and power in
education (New York, Teachers College Press), 231!251.
Hall, S. (2001) Foucault: power, knowledge and discourse, in: M. Wetherell, S. Taylor & S. J. Yates
(Eds) Discourse theory and practice (London, Sage), 72!81.
Harris, J. & Cale, L. (2006) A review of children’s fitness testing, European Physical Education
Review, 12(2), 201!225.
Johns, D. P. (2005) Recontextualizing and delivering the biomedical model as a physical education
curriculum, Sport, Education and Society, 10(1), 69!84.
Johns, D. P. & Johns, J. S. (2000) Surveillance, subjectivism and technologies of power: an analysis
of the discursive practice of high-performance sport, International Review for the Sociology of
Sport, 35(2), 219!234.
Kirk, D. (1992) Physical education, discourse and ideology: bringing the hidden curriculum into
view, Quest, 44, 35!54.
Kirk, D. (1997) Schooling bodies in new times: the reform of school physical education in high
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

modernity, in: J-M. Fernandez-Balboa (Ed.) Critical postmodernism in human movement,

physical education and sport (Albany, NY, State University of New York Press), 39!63.
Kirk, D. (1998) Schooling bodies: school practice and public discourse, 1880!1950 (London, Leicester
University Press).
Kirk, D. (2006) The ‘obesity crisis’ and school physical education, Sport, Education and Society,
11(2), 121!133.
Kirk, D. & Colquhoun, D. (1989) Healthism and physical education, British Journal of Sociology of
Education, 10(4), 417!434.
Lupton, D. (1992) Discourse analysis: a new methodology for understanding the ideologies of
health and illness, Australian Journal of Public Health, 16(2), 145!150.
Lupton, D. (1995) The imperative of health. Public health and the regulated body (London, Sage).
Macdonald, D. (1993) Knowledge, gender and power in physical education teacher education,
Australian Journal of Education, 37(3), 259!278.
Macdonald, D. (1995) The role of proletarianization in physical education teacher attrition,
Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 66(2), 129!141.
Macdonald, D. & Kirk, D. (1999) Pedagogy, the body and Christian identity, Sport, Education and
Society, 4(2), 131!142.
Macdonald, D., Kirk, D., Metzler, M., Nilges, L. M., Schempp, P. & Wright, J. (2002) It’s all very
well in theory: theoretical perspectives and their applications in contemporary pedagogical
research, Quest, 54(2), 133!156.
Maykut, P. & Morehouse, R. (1994) Beginning qualitative research: a philosophical and practical guide
(London, Falmer Press).
McMurray, A. (2003) Community health and wellness: a sociological approach (2nd edn) (Sydney,
Mosby).
Öhman, M. (2007) Kropp och makt i rörelse [Body and power in motion] (diss.) (Örebro, Sweden:
Örebro Studies in Sociology, 9).
Olofsson, E. (2005) The discursive construction of gender in physical education in Sweden,
1945!2003: is meeting the learner’s needs tantamount to meeting the market’s needs?,
European Physical Education Review, 11(3), 219!238.
Parker, I. (1999) Varieties of discourse and analysis, in: I. Parker (Ed.) Critical textwork: an
introduction to varieties of discourse analysis (Buckingham, Open University Press), 1!12.
Quennerstedt, M. (2006) Att lära sig hälsa [Learning Health] (diss.) (Örebro, Sweden, Örebro
Studies in Education, 15).
Quennerstedt, M. (2008) Studying the institutional dimension of meaning making*a way to
analyze subject content in physical education, Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 27(3),
434!440.
 372 L. Webb et al.

Quennerstedt, M. & Sundberg, M. (2004) Healthy bodies ! to study the construction of body and
health in Physical education, in: P. Jørgenssen & N. Vogensen (Eds) What’s going on in the
gym (Odense, University of Southern Denmark), 87!103.
Rich, E. & Evans, J. (2005) Making sense of eating disorders in schools, Discourse: studies in the
cultural politics of education, 26(2), 247!262.
Rich, E., Holroyd, R. & Evans, J. (2004) ‘Hungry to be noticed’: young women, anorexia and
schooling, in: J. Evans, B. Davies & J. Wright (Eds) Body knowledge and control: studies in the
sociology of physical education and health (London, Routledge), 35!51.
Shildrick, M. (1997) Leaky bodies and boundaries: feminism, postmodernism and (bio) ethics (London,
Routledge).
Shilling, C. (2005) The body in culture, technology and society (London, Sage).
Tinning, R. & Glasby, T. (2002) Pedagogical work and the ‘cult of the body’: considering the role
of HPE in the context of the ‘new public health’, Sport, Education and Society, 7(2), 109!119.
Wahlström, N. (2002) Om det förändrade ansvaret för skolan. [On the shift of responsibility for
compulsory schooling] (diss.) (Örebro, Sweden, Örebro Studies in Education, 3).
Downloaded By: [University of Otago] At: 20:55 29 October 2008

Watkins, M. (2005) The erasure of habit: tracing the pedagogic body, Discourse: studies in the
cultural politics of education, 26(2), 167!181.
Webb, L. A. & Macdonald, D. (2008) The teachers’ body as a tool of work: magnified embodiment
and the under-representation of women in leadership. (Manuscript submitted for publica-
tion.)
Webb, L. A. & Macdonald, D. (2007a) Dualing with gender: teacher’s work, careers and leadership
in physical education, Gender and Education, 19(4), 491!512.
Webb, L. A. & Macdonald, D. (2007b) Techniques of power in physical education and the under-
representation of women in leadership, Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 26,
279!297.
Webb, L. A., McCaughtry, N. & Macdonald, D. (2004) Surveillance as a technique of power in
Physical Education, Sport, Education and Society, 9(2), 207!222.
Wright, J. (1996) The construction of complementarity in physical education, Gender and
Education, 8(1), 61!79.
Wright, J. (1999) Gendered practices in physical education: working with teachers, European
Physical Education Review, 5(3), 181!197.
Wright, J. (2000) Disciplining the body: power, knowledge and subjectivity in a physical education
lesson, in: A. Lee & C. Poynton (Eds) Culture and text: discourse and methodology in social
research and cultural studies (NSW, Australia, Allen & Unwin), 152!169.
Wright, J. & Burrows, L. (2004) ‘‘Being healthy’’: the discursive construction of health in New
Zealand children’s responses to the National Education Monitoring Project, Discourse:
Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 25(2), 211!230.

View publication stats