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This paper explores physical education (PE) teachers' views of the inclusion of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in PE from a figurational sociological perspective. Starting from the premise that teachers' views cannot be adequately explained by studying the concept of inclusion or the teacher in isolation, it is argued that we can only begin to make sense of such views by locating teachers within the figurations of which they are a part and by exploring two particularly salient features of those figurations: namely, teachers' habituses and contexts. In doing so, the paper focuses upon the training teachers receive, the constraints imposed upon them by their colleagues and pupils, and, most importantly, the suitability of the National Curriculum for meeting the needs of pupils with SEN. The paper concludes by highlighting some of the unintended consequences of the inclusion of pupils with SEN in PE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years something of a moral panic has been created by the popular press and other powerful voices, around and about the teaching of Physical Education in schools. Teachers have been variously blamed for undermining the country's economic welfare and/or its capacities to achieve success in sport in international arenas. This paper examines the origins of this debate and tries to locate it within broader critiques of educational practice which have featured in educational and political discourses in Britain in recent years. It also claims that individualism is alive arid well in the New PE and that initiatives (such as Health Related Fitness and new forms of Games teaching) do little to challenge conventional social, categories and status hierarchies (relating to race, class, ability and sex) which prevail both inside the classroom and outside school. At its heart the paper points to the processes by which particular sorts of knowledge are legitimated and defined as worthwhile, in this case for the Physical Education Curriculum in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the overall occupational culture of teachers, there are a number of different staff subcultures which compete for limited resources within a contracting educational system This paper concentrates upon the subculture of physical education by focusing on one department engaged in a teacher initiated curriculum innovation where competing perspectives of change are made evident It is suggested that coping strategies developed within the educational context of the school in order to enhance subject status may deflect teachers from considering the possibilities of change in their classroom practice [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]