Physical Education Values: Teachers’ unconscious reproduction of personal constructs.

Abstract

This thesis investigates how physical education (PE) teachers’ personal values and backgrounds, conceptualised as ‘habitus’, shape their curriculum decisions and activity selection in English schools. Employing an innovative methodological combination, the research combines Kelly’s Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) with Bourdieu’s social theory to elicit and analyse the personal constructs of six practising PE teachers.
The findings reveal that teachers’ professional choices are profoundly influenced by a shared habitus, formed through early socialisation in family and community sports. This leads to an ingrained preference for traditional, competitive team activities, marginalising alternative forms of physical activity. The analysis identifies ‘occupational selection’ as a key mechanism, where the profession systematically filters individuals whose values align with this dominant sporting culture, creating a self-perpetuating cycle. A disconnect is highlighted between contemporary academic research advocating for inclusivity and the practice-oriented, often unconsciously biased, priorities of teachers.
The research concludes that the enduring conflict over PE's purpose is fundamentally a conflict of habitus. It argues for critical, reflexive reform in teacher training and curriculum development to disrupt this cycle. Recommendations include using reflexive tools like RGT in training to uncover bias, and policy shifts to legitimise a broader, more inclusive vision of PE focused on lifelong physical literacy for all students, rather than the reproduction of a traditional sports model.

Date of Award	22 Jun 2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Winchester
Supervisor	Hazel J Brown (Supervisor) & Lisa-Marie Martin (Supervisor)