A shorter version of this chapter is to be published in “Physical Education Matters” (afPE, Reading, Autumn 2007)

Women working in physical education and sport often complain that their interests are marginal or ignored by their own institutions or organisations; or in national policy. Yet they often are reluctant to engage in arguments, advocacy or persuasion which might advance these interests.

I was once accused by two teachers who had been attending a training day on the new National Curriculum in England and Wales, of being “overly political”, because I had said that it was essential that physical education teachers provide quality programs to ensure that physical education remained part of the National Curriculum. My response was that, had not I, and others, “been political” during the lead up to the legislation, physical education would not have been part of children’s statutory entitlement, and that would have meant that they (the teachers) would be have been out of a job! If something matters enough, surely it is worth fighting for?

Shortly afterwards, I was attracted to the term agency, because while it acknowledges overarching structures and systems of inequality, nevertheless individuals and groups can make a difference. Agency can thus be seen as a means of expressing personal engagement and power:

This short account outlines the relationships between individual and group agency, and the potential power of both individuals and organisations to exercise it – that is, to make a difference. It will also embrace the notion that, by providing the skills and understanding needed, and encouraging children to use their capabilities and gifts as active entities to help to shape their worlds, educators are demonstrating commitment to develop the capital which young people will need to operate effectively in rapidly changing societies. Howard Gardner (2007) has insisted that a “Five Minds” approach is needed, to compensate for the failure of capitalism to provide an education which prepares young people to make sense of the world in which they live.

At national level across the world, having recognised that the position of physical education in school curricula is under threat (Hardman and Marshall, 1999, 2004), many organisations speaking on behalf of physical education are also recognising that they can no longer take for granted, that school curricula will include physical education. In some countries, this provision has already been lost, at least partly because of the lack of an active or effective national voice to protect or promote it.

This concern was at the root of the First World Summit on Physical Education, held in Berlin in 1999 (Doll Tepper and Scoretz 2000), which resulted in the Berlin Agenda, for governments and for people working in physical education – a clear and visible example of an expectation that, despite the fact that national policies depend on governments, individual members of organisations have an important role to play. Engagement and expectation are further illustrated in the Maggingen Commitment from the Second World Summit in 2005. These events and their outcomes were examples of the commitment of the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education (ICSSPE), to address what was then being called the “world crisis” in physical education.

This was not happen-chance. ICSSPE’s leadership had not only secured funding from the International Olympic Committee for research (Hardman and Marshall 1999) which had demonstrated the trend of decline of physical education across the world but ICSSPE had also decided to do something about it, by raising the funding and patronage to host the First World Summit. That commitment was demonstrated again during the 3rd Conference Ministers of Physical Education and Sport in Punta del Este, a month after the 1st World Summit, when senior ICSSPE officers, including the President and the General Secretary, spent a whole night reprographing the translated versions of the Berlin Agenda, so that all delegates could be provided with a copy. Without this highly practical commitment by individuals, the Declaration of Punta del Este (1999) would never have been agreed and issued; and a useful lever for decision at national level would not now be available. This was an excellent example of individual agency to support collective action.

Yet for many organisations, national and international, it may be an uphill task to convince members that their active participation in decision-making can make a difference.

In the United Kingdom (UK), as a national organisation, the Association for Physical Education (afPE) exercises collective agency, on behalf of its members and the physical education community. As there is continuing pressure on school curriculum time; drift in investment for grass roots sport towards elite sport as a result of London’s hosting of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012; and further pressure to generalise educational objectives which could reduce the visibility of physical education, there have been and will be many occasions when afPE will respond collectively. By providing guidance and support materials, afPE also encourages the development of personal agency among our members and allies. Collectively and individually, everyone can make a difference!

This presents a dilemma. Of course, associations can represent collective views on national policy and strategy; indeed, that is a central part of an association’s role. But such representation is much more influential, if it is supported by a large number of individual responses. The National Curriculum Working Group on Physical Education was told by civil servants, when it made its Interim Report in 1990, that Ministers take notice of responses, only when the sheer volume means that they cannot ignore them! In England in 1990, the profession and its allies did respond, in numbers, and using arguments of quality. As a result, the commitment to swimming instruction in primary schools remained, despite the Secretary of State’s concerns about cost. This was a concrete outcome, achieved through concerted action, by both organisations and members of the physical education profession. Similar success was achieved through collective action and individual responses, following the Secretary of State’s attempts to remove physical education from the statutory requirement in upper high schools; and earlier, to ensure the inclusion of physical education as a National Curriculum foundation subject, after the proposals of 1988 had excluded it. The situation for physical education in the UK would have been very different now, had these interventions not taken place.

The function of collective response has been illustrated many times. For example, during consultation on a proposed new model of the curriculum for lower high schools in England, teachers and heads of department were happy to discuss and provide critique during sessions of continuing professional development, but it was much more difficult to persuade them to respond individually. It seems that association members, and the wider physical education community, are happy to allow associations to respond on their behalf, and on behalf of the physical education profession as a whole – collective agency through individual members’ mandate.

However, one task for a national or international association for physical education is to help to build and support personal agency among its members. By demonstrating the direct effects of personal and collective action, and by harnessing and directing the commitment of members to their subject and to the young people they serve, associations can build a powerful force which can influence decisions.

The task of an association, then, is to convince its members and allies that their views and actions can make a difference. Every individual can have an influence on decisions, whether at school, college, national or local level.

It is important to recognise that many people do feel powerless to influence even their most immediate surroundings; but they may have enough confidence to act through their association, exercising what Bandura calls proxy agency. There have been recent examples of this in the UK, in passing on individual members’ concerns to Members of Parliament who raise issues with Ministers; in challenging the criteria for a national award, which were not appropriate for children aged 3-7; in expressing concern about reduced time in courses for primary teachers; and member groups requesting afPE to write on their behalf to represent the implications of proposed policy. At international level, the use as levers or reference points, of international declarations like the Brighton Declaration on Women and Sport; and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, can also focus political attention, as can unfavourable comparison of one’s own country or system, with one seen as a rival or camparitor.

The most recent example of an international Declaration which can be used in this way is the “Accept and Respect” Declaration (Benn and Kouskie, 2008), endorsed and disseminated by the International Association of Physical Education and Sport for Girls and Women (IAPESGW), with the intention of raising awareness and understanding of the needs of Islamic women and girls in participating in physical education and sport.

The concept of agency has direct links to the kinds of pedagogy which now seem appropriate for the 21st Century. Educators enact agency whenever they make a choice about what and how they provide opportunities and support for learning; hence agency relates strongly with pedagogy.

Fourteen years later, Gardner (2007) is advocating a new approach as a counter to the immense technological and social challenges being faced by 21st Century young people. Gardner asserts that markets are “fundamentally amoral”, capable of causing great unhappiness, through their making of bid winners and losers. “In this world of free information, we need our children to be educated in FIVE MINDS”, in each of which children need to achieve competence before benefiting from the next:

1. The disciplined mind – mastery of at least one way of thinking and learning. This is the most commonly understood model of education, the transmission of skills, knowledge or understanding to the young, for their own use, and ultimately, transmission to others in their turn. In physical education, this approach has been described as “learning to move”:

2. The synthesising mind, which takes information from disparate sources. It understands and evaluates information objectively, puts it together in ways that make sense and is more important as the tide of information increases. In physical education, it is conceptualised as engaging the thinking body and an ability to place skills and knowledge in context, making them meaningful; and discriminating their use and application.

3. The creating mind breaks new ground and creates new ideas. It poses unfamiliar questions and arrives at unexpected answers. It depends on a foundation of discipline and synthesis. In physical education, the engaged, critical learner can devise new ways of answering problems; and create new solutions, ways of moving and thinking, and interacting with the environment and others.

4. The respectful mind welcomes differences between people, tries to understand others and seeks to work effectively with them. Gardner argues that it is a necessity in the global village. In physical education, this would require the learner to be “other-directed” rather than achievement-oriented, with the capacity to value one’s own and others’ gifts and contributions. This state of mind would be at the same time, the basis of and the outcome of genuinely inclusive physical education.

Lastly,
5. The ethical mind ponders the nature and purpose of activity and assesses the needs and desires of society. It thinks beyond self-interest and seeks to improve the lot of all. In physical education, therefore, the learner can challenge conventional wisdom, recognise contradictions in the ways that physical activities are used and managed, and is able to define actions as right and wrong. This requires physical educators to be moral guardians and to voice concerns about dominant models and policies.

Together, these last four approaches embody “moving to learn”:

By using Gardner’s “Five Minds”, leaders in physical education recognise, not only their own, but learners’ agency. By committing to both “learning to move” and “moving to learn”, they also will be offering to the children and the young people they teach, a gift of enormous value – the multi-dimensional form of capital (Puttnam, 1995) known as physical literacy. This is the distinctive contribution of physical education for which it is worth deploying human agency – whether individual, proxy, or collective.