This thesis deals with the question of capability to move in the context of physical education. What is there to know when knowing how to move in specific and complex ways and how could this kind of knowing be described? One ambition had been to develop ways to explicate, and thereby open up for discussion, what could be an educational goal in the context of movemens and movement activities in the school subject of physical education and health (PEH).

 

The study has taken a practical epistemological perspective on capability to move which challanges the traditional distinction between mental and physical skills as well as between theoretical and practical knowledge. Movement actions, or ways of moving, have been regarded as expressions of knowing.

 

Informants from three different arenas were chosen: PEH in upper secondary school, athletics and free-skiing. In school, a Learning Study was conducted in order to investigate the meaning of knowing a specific new movement to be mastered. In the studies of knowing in athletics and free-skiing, video observations and stimulated recall-interviews with skilled practitioners were used for data collection.

 

The results of the analyses suggest it is possible to describe practitioners' developed knowing as a number of specific ways of knowing rather to specific ways of moving. These specific ways of knowing might be regarded as educational goals in PEH and may also contribute to the ongowing international discussion of what 'ability' in the context of physical education might mean.

 

ISBN: 978-91-7447-843-3