Exploring the changes of physical education in the age of Covid-19

Abstract

Background Physical education (PE) has been traditionally considered as a practical and ‘hands-on’ subject in schools, where close proximity and physical contact is common, particularly in Spain which has a high proximity culture. Significantly, the delivery of PE has changed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and this brings significant consequences for preservice PE teachers.

Purpose The aim of the paper is to explore the changes of PE during Covid-19 and the effects on pre-service teachers.

Methods Semi-structured interviews were used to produce data with a group of 12 preservice PE teachers from Spain (four women and eight men) who were undertaking their practicum in PE when the Covid-19 lockdown was imposed in Spain [14 March 2020]. Dredging was used as an analytical technique to identify the relations and affects that comprised assemblages of bodies, things and social formations.

Findings Results suggest that preservice teachers are having difficulties in re-assembling PE in the age of Covid-19, and that this produces the affects of precarity, fear and insecurity. Furthermore, the PE re-assemblage also results in a shift of pedagogical affects. The participants particularly struggled to think on a PE assemblage that does not include the affect of physical encounters with their students. The new assemblage of PE also included encounters with digital technologies, which allowed for particular openings and closings for a re-alignment into the shifted PE.

Conclusions Pre-service teachers were unfamiliar with the way the PE assemblage has shifted, and this shifting affected their ability to produce affects in the ‘new PE’. The new PE assemblage leads to a significant change in the culture of PE teaching in Spain, where physical contact between teachers and students was previously normal and taken for granted.