The suffering of students in physical education. Unsettling experiences and situational conditions

ABSTRACT

Background

The state of research on unsettling experiences of students in physical education can be characterized as fragmented. The available studies focus on select emotions (e.g. fear), specific forms of discrimination (e.g. ableism), or different types of social interactions (e.g. bullying). In this way, the state of research reveals different aspects of students’ suffering in physical education (PE) in a puzzle-like manner, while systematic investigations of the overall picture of PE as a complex meaningfully structured phenomenon remain open.

Purpose

The study presented in this paper aims to systematically capture the breadth of unsettling PE experiences by taking different perspectives of students into account, while also doing justice to PE in its situational logic. Based on a social constructivist approach, the following research questions will be addressed: (1) What kind of experiences are interpreted as unsettling by students in PE? (2) Which situational conditions are associated with students’ unsettling PE experiences?

Methods

A qualitative research approach based on written short narratives was employed to answer the research questions. Current and former secondary school students (N = 677) from Germany participated. Grounded theory coding methods and sequential analysis were used for the data analysis.

Results

Our data indicates a wide range of students’ unsettling PE experiences (e.g. public humiliation, social exclusion, and forms of violence). On a supra-individual level, two major categories of unsettling PE experiences were identified: (1) The vulnerability of the students perceived through revealed inadequacies and (2) the social oppression of the supposedly ‘lazy, weak and unfit’. Students’ experience of vulnerability can be traced back to situations of physical exposure and performance failure while their experience of social oppression draws back to suppressive actions by teachers and fellow students. For each of these categories, we identify typical ways in which students deal with their unsettling experience. On a structural level, a hierarchizing culture of PE that fosters unsettling experiences is revealed.

Discussion

As a central strength, our study can provide condensed explanations for the emergence and consequences of unsettling PE experiences from the students’ perspective. Our findings relate to and enrich existing discourses regarding the situational emergence of vulnerability, overarching mechanisms of marginalization, and the hierarchizing culture of PE as a basis for social oppression. It is particularly tragic that affected students feel left alone and can hardly escape harmful situations, which perpetuates their suffering. Thus, pedagogical concepts that emphasize students’ diversity and the dismantling of hierarchies are needed and should be advanced further.

KEYWORDS:

• PE experiences
• students’ perspective
• written narratives
• social constructivism

Introduction

In the public eye, physical education (PE) in school primarily holds positive potential for students. Accordingly, hopeful expectations, such as health promotion and personality development, are placed on PE, which, unlike other subjects, has a central focus on movement and physicality. But not all participants benefit equally from PE. Instead, some students regularly experience incidents of devaluation, humiliation, or social exclusion that can be quite harmful and lead to reduced engagement in physical activity (Beltrán-Carrillo et al. 2012; Tudor, Sarkar, and Spray 2019). In this context, research has been focusing on select emotions, e.g. anxiety (Liukkonen et al. 2010), specific forms of discrimination, e.g. ableism (Giese et al. 2021), or different kinds of social interactions, e.g. bullying (Jiménez-Barbero et al. 2020). The existing studies reveal that students’ unsettling PE experiences are a complex, multifaceted phenomenon. While they provide valuable insights, they do not yet fully illuminate the overarching relationships between these different facets. Therefore, we would like to provide deeper insights into the complex interconnections between students’ various unsettling PE experiences and the associated situational conditions, i.e. didactic and social conditions. More specifically, we address the following explorative research questions: (1) What kind of experiences are interpreted as unsettling by students in PE? (2) Which situational conditions are associated with students’ unsettling PE experiences?

These questions will be examined on the basis of a qualitative study with current and former secondary school students from Germany, which was part of a larger externally funded research project.¹ Our study bundles a wide range of unsettling PE experiences from a variety of students. This enabled us to identify supra-individual and cross-situational key factors that shape students’ unsettling experiences in typical ways. Based on our findings, we critically discuss and advocate for pedagogical change.

State of research: students’ manifold suffering in PE

Over the years, several scholars have turned their attention to the negative sides of PE, examining issues of social equity and diversity, (dis)embodiment, and social power relations (e.g. Flory and Landi 2020; Munk and Agergaard 2015; van Amsterdam 2014). In order to do justice to the complexity of this broad research area, our investigation of students’ unsettling PE experiences takes three different research strands into account.

Firstly, there are studies focusing on different kinds of (negative) emotional experiences of PE students. Tudor, Sarkar, and Spray (2019) indicate that student-perceived stressors in PE emerge from the social, physical, organizational, and performance environment. According to Åsebø, Løvoll, and Krumsvik (2020, 13), stressful experiences are not only based on lesson-related factors (e.g. the lesson content) but also on students past physical activity experiences. Regarding students’ enjoyment and anxiety levels, the didactic setting and motivational climate of the PE lesson were identified as relevant factors (Liukkonen et al. 2010). Furthermore, feelings of shame can be evoked through physical exposure, physical contact, or body-related remarks (Hunger and Böhlke 2017) and, as PE is the only subject where the moving body is the center of attention, body-dissatisfaction is quite evident among adolescent PE students (Kerner, Haerens, and Kirk 2018). The aforementioned studies show the broad range of unsettling experiences, which are often associated with negative impact on students’ mental health (e.g. Røset, Green, and Thurston 2020a).

Secondly, there is another area of research focusing on different groups of marginalized students and practices of discrimination. Social categories such as gender, ethnicity, body size, or (dis)ability and their collective intersections are important for the construction of differences in PE. These predominant discourses surrounding the body and athletic abilities privilege male, athletic, able-bodied, and white students (Azzarito 2009; Sykes 2011; van Amsterdam 2014). This results in the marginalization of girls (Beltrán-Carrillo et al. 2012; Mitchell, Gray, and Inchley 2015), LGBTQ+ students (Berg and Kokkonen 2022; Sykes 2011), and students with disabilities (Coates and Vickerman 2008; Giese et al. 2021). Furthermore, ethnically diverse students are subject to racialized body discourses (Hill and Azzarito 2012), and overweight students encounter weight-related teasing due to body normativity (Li and Rukavina 2012). These studies show that PE, with its limited notions of athletic ability, does not fully acknowledge the existing diversity of students.

The third research strand to which we refer concerns social interactions in PE. It becomes apparent that social interactions serve to negotiate social status and affiliation among students (Munk and Agergaard 2015). Sport competencies are used as a criterion for recognition and non-recognition among peers (Grimminger 2013). For example, displays of competence serve physically skilled students to exercise power and maintain their status (Hills 2007), which conversely implies that students are being ‘othered’ based on their deviating sporting competence or bodily appearance (Røset, Green, and Thurston 2020a). In the case of bullying, perceived physical differences in combination with practices of social domination are decisive for the (re)production of power relations (Jiménez-Barbero et al. 2020; O'Connor and Graber 2014). It can be concluded that, in addition to lesson-related factors (i.e. the didactic setting), social dynamics play an important role for students’ suffering in PE.

In summary, the studies presented in this chapter offer valuable insights into the diverse perspectives of students beyond the intended teaching objectives. They shed light on the negative sides of PE, while also being bound by their specific thematical focus. Thus, there is still a lack of systematic analyses that capture the breadth and complexity of the phenomenon, taking different experiences of students into account while also doing justice to PE in its situational logic with its didactic and social framework. We address this desideratum with our present study on students’ unsettling PE experiences.

Theoretical framework: the social construction of unsettling experiences

We initially used the term ‘unsettling experience’ in everyday language in order to grasp the manifold manifestations of the phenomenon. As not to narrow our empirical research beforehand, we captured the numerous, and often divergent, labels for unsettling experiences (e.g. irritation, distress, anxiety, suffering) in terms of in vivo codes. With a broad conceptual umbrella, we were able to consider different individual psychological and social manifestations of unsettling experiences.

Thus, the object of our research are students’ narrated memories of unsettling experiences that refer to different PE situations. From a social constructivist perspective, these experienced situations are not objectively given but subjectively defined by the students as part of their subjective reality construction: ‘If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences’ (Thomas and Thomas 1928, 572). This means that even if, for example, the teacher does not intend to harm anyone, a subjectively experienced PE situation can still have harmful consequences for students. Berger and Luckmann (1966, 168–169) distinguish between the experience of everyday situations and the experience of crisis situations. Whereas the former is handled by implicit routines, the latter must be dealt with explicitly (Berger and Luckmann 1966, 175). Our review of recent literature has shown that students’ suffering is expressed through strong negative emotions that students often find challenging to deal with. Therefore, students’ unsettling experiences are theorized as crisis situations, which are unordinary and problematic for them. Through reflexive processing of the problematic experience, students find their own interpretation of the situation, which is integrated into their personal stock of knowledge (Berger and Luckmann 1966, 37–39). In this way, the memory of the experience can be made retrospectively accessible in similar situations and both current and former PE students are able to recall the subjectively relevant details of their experience (Nygren and Blom 2001).

The subjective interpretation of an experienced situation happens within the framework of a socially constructed reality. Situations can be understood as being socially pre-structured by societal norms, values, and role expectations (Berger and Luckmann 1966, 89–96). It is important to note that unsettling PE situations take place in the school context to which predetermined expectations and rules are attached. The teacher is expected to arrange PE lessons didactically to impart knowledge and skills to the students, which implies a socially pre-structured imbalance of power between teachers and students. Curricular guidelines and principles orientate teaching and determine, to some extent, the respective PE situation, but so do spontaneous and non-instructional actions of students and teachers (Meseth, Proske, and Radtke 2011, 225–227). That is why we understand PE situations as temporally framed and spatially structured social fields, where various participants, such as the students and the teacher, act with regard to their different interests, expectations, and power opportunities (Ziemann 2013, 119). In addition to the subjective interpretations from the participants, a socially shared understanding of the situation is being negotiated, which, in turn, shapes the subjective experience of students (Berger and Luckmann 1966, 183–193). This means, that students’ subjective interpretations are embedded into reflections on the socially constructed meaning of any given PE situation. This dialectic relation between subjective and social construction of reality (Berger and Luckmann 1966, 207–211) can serve as a theoretical means to gain deeper understanding of students’ subjective experiences.

Methods

Data collection

In order to approach the phenomenon of students’ unsettling PE experiences, a qualitative study among current and former students (N = 677) was conducted from May 2021 to September 2022 by collecting written short narratives (Hunger et al. 2022). This method is based on work by Nygren and Blom (2001) and Hunger and Böhlke (2017), who developed alternative research approaches to evoke brief reflective narratives about situations that people experienced as problematic. In a writing prompt, we asked the participants to write down an unsettling experience from their PE class:

‘There are sometimes uncomfortable situations for students in PE class. For example, people may feel embarrassed, anxious, excluded or hurt. What is/was that like for you? Please describe a specific PE experience that was bad for you.’

In this way, they were encouraged to describe in a comprehensible way an experience that they themselves identified as thematically relevant. Due to the asynchrony of communication with the researchers, written short narratives require a focus on what is subjectively essential for the narrators (according to their individual system of relevance). In comparison to oral interviews, the written nature of the narrative allows for longer and more complex processes of reflection during the writing process (Nygren and Blom 2001, 370). That is why this method is best suited for reconstructing how people subjectively make sense of and structure their own situational experiences.

Participants and settings

We collected handwritten narratives at eight German secondary schools (N = 459). During the selection process, different types of schools and locations (i.e. urban, rural) were considered. The data was collected during classroom instruction and the participating students were between 11 and 18 years old. Additionally, we collected narratives via an online survey (N = 218) in which both adolescents and adults taking on a former students’ perspective could participate. In contrast to the broader school survey, the online survey allowed us to specifically reach individuals who consider themselves as affected by negative PE experiences. Therefore, we visited different places such as youth centers, queer networks, self-help groups, inclusive settings or group-meetings for people with obesity to promote our online survey providing a QR-code. Study participation was voluntary and anonymity was guaranteed at all times. For the school survey, a submitted ethics application was approved by the school authorities and we have reflected on our approach from an ethical point of view. Consequently, we aimed to ensure a safe environment for dealing with this sensitive topic and provided potential mental health contacts. Moreover, we, as sport pedagogues, have reflected on our own entanglement and presuppositions in relation to the field of school PE. The anonymity of the writing process enabled respondents to discuss very sensitive issues, which can be more difficult in face-to-face interactions with adult researchers from a sports background. We see this as an advantage of our approach, although the impossibility of directly asking for further elaboration partially limited the richness of individual narratives. However, this is outweighed by the fact that we were able to collect data on a wide range of different PE experiences, which allowed us to draw conclusions on a supra-individual level.

Data analysis

For the interpretative analysis of the data, we used grounded theory coding methods (Corbin and Strauss 1990) in combination with sequential analysis (Soeffner 2004). After a descriptive screening of the extensive data corpus, the selection of cases for the in-depth analysis (N = 123) was guided by exploring the varying intensity and breadth of the phenomenon. The aim was to generate a sample rich in contrasts with regard to different emotional experiences and diverse perspectives of students, as well as multiple situational contexts. The selected cases were subjected to sequential analysis in order to reconstruct the specific meaning and situational conditions of the narrated experiences. In an iterative process of open and axial coding, the cases were then compared and contrasted with each other until a system of categories emerged that was suited for a deeper and more abstract understanding of students’ unsettling PE experiences, which we would now like to present.

Results

The study participants reported a broad spectrum of unsettling PE experiences (e.g. public humiliation, social exclusion, and forms of violence), pointing to respective case-specific conditions. However, on a supra-individual level, body normativity, performance orientation, and social power differences were found to be key factors that shape students’ unsettling PE experiences in typical ways. This is why, given the fragmentary state of existing research, we present these complex overarching relationships on the basis of two major categories of experience that we have identified. The first category delves into students’ experience of vulnerability² perceived through revealed inadequacies, which is typically produced in situations of bodily exposure and performance failure. The second category explores the experience of social oppression of the supposedly ‘unfit, lazy and unathletic’, which goes back to suppressive actions by teachers or classmates. These two categories of experience are analytically on one level and will be differentiated with regard to the constituting situational conditions as well as students’ ways of experiencing and dealing with them. Nevertheless, the two overarching result categories are also considered as interrelated, as personally perceived vulnerability holds the potential to become the origin for social oppression. Based on this, our findings allow for fundamental reflections on a hierarchizing culture of PE, which is reflected in and produced by the presented unsettling PE experiences.

The vulnerability perceived through revealed inadequacies

I used to be a bit chubby and not very flexible. At the end of the gymnastics unit we had to perform in front of the whole class. All the others (with only a few exceptions) performed well and got applause from the classmates. When I finished my bad performance they just stared at me. I got a bad grade, started crying and ran to the changing room (former student, age 21).

This quote exemplifies the quite common experience of students who feel exposed and therefore vulnerable in PE lessons. At its core, this type of experience is about the revelation of a personal weakness or inadequacy. The students experience themselves as particularly vulnerable because they are at the mercy of the situation and fear negative social consequences (e.g. staring or mockery). This is accompanied by a personal devaluation, which can have negative impact on students’ self-esteem and mental health (Røset, Green, and Thurston 2020a, 22-26). Our research indicates that this can affect all students, even those considering themselves as sporty, due to the subjectivity of the experience. However, it has been shown that PE students who do not conform to existing body or athletic norms are affected in specific ways (van Amsterdam 2014). We will now go into more detail on how this vulnerability is situationally produced through bodily exposure and performance failure.

Bodily exposure openly on display

When experiencing bodily exposure, students describe that they were forced into the center of public attention, resulting in shameful public displays of their bodies. As one student puts it:

Swimming lessons during puberty were hell. You feel uncomfortable anyway, and then you have to step out in front of the whole class practically naked (former student, age 22).

Students are pressured to step into the public spotlight by instructional demands, e.g. when they are asked to demonstrate a skill in front of the class, which they cannot decline. In addition, it may also be the case that the teacher or classmates suddenly shine the spotlight on them by verbally addressing their physicality. A social setting in which peers, whose opinion is of high importance, serve as an evaluating audience was found to be constitutive for unsettling experiences of bodily exposure. According to Røset, Green, and Thurston (2020a, 25), being judged by classmates on the basis of physical appearance is a decisive factor for social affiliation in PE. Our research indicates that this is particularly problematic for students who do not conform to societal norms of an attractive, athletic body.

The public nature of the lesson situation can be established through a variety of didactic decisions. Typical didactic settings that evoke physical exposure are public stage situations, where students perform a skill or choreography in front of the class, or exercises with long waiting times that encourage observation by students in queue. Tasks that require to touch, assist, or carry other students’ bodies can also lead to body-related shame. Furthermore, changing rooms, public showers, and swimming pools are recurring sites of bodily exposure. Our findings are in line with Åsebø, Løvoll, and Krumsvik (2022), who indicated that PE teachers’ organization of the class, body pressure, and being watched by fellow students determine whether visibility in PE is perceived as a stressor or as an opportunity to perform.

Pre-destined failure on all levels

Another way to be regarded as inferior is through failure in performance situations. There, the focus is not primarily on physical appearance but on insufficient sporting competence, often in comparison with others:

I finished last every time because running is simply not one of my strengths. The worst part was the direct comparison with others. Who is faster? Who is better? (student, age 15).

Didactic settings in which students typically experience performance-related inferiority are competitive games, skill demonstrations in front of the class, examination, and grading situations, or negative personal feedback. In those situations, the students in our study feel unable to meet performance requirements and they are convinced of their insufficient capabilities due to previous similar experiences:

I knew that I wouldn’t make it anyway (former student, age 19).

Thus, failure appears pre-destined, which also goes back to others, especially ‘biased’ teachers, who label some students as ‘non-sporty’. Consequently, individual effort is seen as futile for succeeding in PE. Additionally, PE students experience external pressure to perform well, i.e. the pressure to get good grades and not be a disappointment to their teammates. Generally speaking, it is not the performance failure per se, but the potential of negative social consequences that makes these experiences particularly problematic. Just as with bodily exposure, the revelation of sporting incompetence makes students socially vulnerable as they might receive negative reactions. Since sporting success is closely linked to social prestige (Røset, Green, and Thurston 2020a, 17-18), failure in PE is not only an athletic or academic failure but pertains to the entire individual, affecting students’ social standing, self-esteem, and motivation. This is especially the case if the social setting of PE is characterized by an achievement-oriented climate of social comparison and competition (Liukkonen et al. 2010, 302–305).

Quiet ways of dealing with vulnerability

Because of the shameful public display and the potential of negative social consequences, experiences of bodily exposure and performance failure are mainly endured quietly. Students try to withdraw from the situation as discretely as possible in order to minimize public attention. For example, they tend to escape into the background of the class or restrooms, they almost never openly complain, and they prefer to present themselves outwardly unimpressed, even if they are struggling with their emotions:

I started to cry and tried to hide it from the others, because I didn’t want to show my weakness (former student, age 19).

These ways of dealing with situations of exposure serve the goal of not showing even more vulnerability and limiting potential social damage. This means that students rarely confide in other people and if they do, it is only private, which is why some PE teachers, who themselves have rather positive biographical associations with sport (Volkmann 2008, 220–224), do not even notice the suffering of their students:

My teachers didn’t recognize the problem at all. They didn’t see that every PE lesson was an ordeal for me, even though they often stood next to it (former student, age 21).

For the affected students, as long as others do not recognize or just ignore the incident, the socially shared understanding of the situation remains unproblematic, while speaking up might attract unwanted attention and possibly lead to unwanted social consequences.

Social oppression of the supposedly ‘unfit, lazy and unathletic’

As it has already been indicated, situational vulnerability and the associated inferiority can become the origin for social exclusion, devaluation, and victimization, which is the core of the second category of students’ unsettling experiences:

My teacher often started shouting at me and made me look ridiculous in front of the whole class. This in turn led to me being picked last for a team and also being deliberately thrown or shot at with balls. The whole class started to make fun of me in PE, pushing me and the like (former student, age 28).

This quote illustrates that social oppression can take on very different manifestations, sometimes gradually intensifying. Being laughed at or being subtly excluded from a team is very common in our sample. Students also report incidents of verbal, physical, and sexualized violence, particularly affecting those who are labelled as ‘unfit, lazy, and unathletic’. The experiences of social oppression that we focus on in this chapter are caused both by fellow students and by the teacher and, as in this case, their actions are mutually dependent. Nevertheless, an analytical distinction between experiences of social domination by the teacher and by fellow students has proven to be substantial for our analysis.

Experiences of physical drill and humiliation by the teacher

Some teachers exercise coercion and power through an authoritarian teaching style. Unyielding regulations are established and sometimes violently enforced. Students experience these situations as boundary-violating physical drill, as this narrative exemplifies:

Once I had a slight cold. We were supposed to do endurance running, but after a few laps I noticed that it was getting harder and harder to breathe and I asked for a break. The teacher yelled at me to move my ass and keep running and pushed me into the run. Quite shocked, I struggled through the run (…). It was a very unpleasant feeling of being at the mercy of the teacher, with an absolute loss of respect and trust, and with the realization that my own limits don’t matter at all (former student, age 37).

The infliction of physical and mental distress, for example by refusing to allow breaks, enforcing attendance despite health unease, disproportionate sanctions, or public humiliation is experienced as relentless oppression. Students who contradict prevailing fitness norms especially face very strict disciplinary practices. It has been argued by Fitzpatrick and Tinning (2014) that health promotion in PE can take on ‘fascist tendencies’, restricting and pressuring students towards a ‘healthier’ lifestyle. Our findings further show that the pretext of health promotion serves as legitimization for unyielding disciplinary teaching methods. Particularly when students try to avoid certain PE situations, for which they usually have good reasons, this is seen as weakness or laziness and disciplinary efforts are intensified:

A classmate had a migraine attack and the teacher replied: You know what gives me migraines? Kids who don’t want to attend PE (student, age 15).

The power imbalance between adult teachers and minor students, which is generally inherent in the school setting, is intensified by a didactic setting that is very teacher-centered and primarily focused on achievement. As a consequence, students no longer perceive the teacher as a confidant, but rather as an oppressor, capable of endangering their psychological and physical well-being. Similarly, Salazar-Ayala et al. (2021) have shown that a controlling teaching style frustrates basic psychological needs and evokes fear of negative evaluation. In comparison, activist approaches to PE advocate for student-centered pedagogy that involves inquiry into students’ perceptions and needs in order to enhance their engagement (Shilcutt, Oliver, and Luguetti 2024).

Experiencing classmates’ violent domination

In addition to the teacher, peers also play an important role in the social oppression of students. Participants in our study reported experiences of social exclusion and peer violence, which can be divided into verbal, physical, and sexualized violence, as these three examples suggest:

It even got to the point where I was insulted after basketball class and people talked behind my back. One girl even said I deserved to be kicked in the face with the ball (student, age 15).

A friend of mine got bullied because he didn’t have branded sports clothes. He was teased and also punched and kicked. That was really bad (student, age 12).

In the changing room, others made fun of me for being quite feminine. I was called names, sexual gestures were made that I felt were assaultive and people got physically too close to me. As it happened in the changing room, I couldn’t just leave (former student, age 26).

Peer aggressions were rarely found to be regulated by the teacher, mostly happening covertly. For example, the locker room is a place where the teacher has little control over students’ interactions. It is also described that peer violence takes place when the teacher is not looking or otherwise busy. Sometimes teachers even encourage violent actions by not intervening in recognized incidents or laughing along with them. Because of the impression that the teacher is failing in their supervisory role, bullied students perceive PE as a ‘state of anarchy’ with the prevailing principle of ‘might makes right’. This finding relates to the concept of the teacher as an ‘invisible hand’ (Farmer et al. 2018), which suggests that teachers have the potential to subliminally influence social dynamics in the classroom.

It turned out that oppressive classmates are taking advantage of the didactic setting. A prominent example is the exclusion of unpopular and unathletic students in team selection processes. Other didactically pre-structured opportunities for peer-violence include competitive games where fellow students can intentionally tackle or shoot hard balls at others. These experiences of peer aggression were found to be accompanied by a social setting that is very hierarchical, meaning that dominant students secure their powerful status by violating socially vulnerable peers (see also O'Connor and Graber 2014).

Limited possibilities for action

In the face of social oppression, students tend to feel disempowered and unable to act. Due to the power position of the teacher or fellow students, they see few possibilities to defend themselves or escape the situation. Enduring oppression quietly is often seen as preferable to speaking out, as the latter may be perceived as confrontational and could exacerbate the problem. Even sympathetic classmates rarely support victimized students. Because of the prevailing power relations, they risk negative consequences themselves and therefore remain silent bystanders. Thus, social oppression can also negatively affect fellow students who are helpless witnesses to the bullying of their friends:

I always felt sorry for her, but I didn’t point out the unfair behavior to the other students either (former student, age 23).

This, in turn, gives victimized students the impression that they are completely alone and have no one to turn to. It is hardly surprising, then, that complaints are rarely considered and are often unsuccessful:

When my mother made a phone call to complain, my teacher acted as if she knew nothing about it and made it sound as if I had misunderstood the situation (former student, age 28).

This shows that the oppressors hold the ability to impose their viewpoint on the matter and appear credible to outsiders, which reinforces the powerless position of affected students. Consequently, students get the feeling that the only way to avoid social oppression is through non-confrontational means, such as escaping to the restroom, ignoring the incident, or simply turning away.

The hierarchizing culture of Physical Education

Through the various experiences reported to us by current and former students, it became apparent that PE can foster social hierarchy formation. Experiences of bodily exposure or performance failure serve to construct inferiority. Reinforced by various forms of social oppression, power inequalities are manifested. If we now look away from specific kinds of PE experiences and consider general structures of PE, a fundamental hierarchizing culture is revealed in our data. This culture is shaping unsettling lesson situations but is also reproduced by them. It became evident that PE, through its performance orientation, the focus on winning and losing, the normalization of rough handling in sports, and the appreciation of physical assertiveness, is a breeding ground for unconcealed humiliation and marginalization. Students are encouraged to assert themselves against others in sporting terms and peer aggression is legitimized to a certain extent.

Furthermore, the position of the teacher might lead to teachers misusing their power, e.g. by exerting pressure through grades. Moreover, the cover-up and downplaying of afflicting incidents is enabled in PE classes. The teacher, as an adult authority figure, as well as dominant classmates can justify their actions by referring to didactic necessities, rule conformity, or general customs in sports culture. This shows that social hierarchies determine which interpretation of the situation is socially enforced. Perspectives that deviate from the socially constructed interpretation are mostly silenced, which is why it was important for us to shed light on the phenomenon of unsettling PE experiences from the perspective of affected students.

Discussion

The present study bundles a wide range of unsettling PE experiences from the perspective of affected students. It focuses on their different subjective perceptions, while at the same time highlighting supra-individual and cross-situational interpretational patterns. How perceived inadequacies lead to a knowledge of one's own vulnerability and how processes of social oppression arise from that are important insights for gaining a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. Our findings relate to and enrich existing discourses, which we would like to discuss in terms of the three research strands as previously outlined:

1. Research regarding emotions of students: through our broad insights, we were able to show that different phenomena such as body-related shame (Hunger and Böhlke 2017), performance anxiety (Liukkonen et al. 2010), or negative stress (Tudor, Sarkar, and Spray 2019), which have often been considered separately up to now, are related to each other in complex ways, leading to feelings of vulnerability. This is due to a didactically induced public exposure in connection with body and performance norms.

2. Research focusing on marginalized groups: we now more precisely understand how certain students that do not conform to prevailing body and performance norms (e.g. girls, ‘unmanly’ boys, people with obesity, chronic illness, or disability) are constructed as inferior and are socially oppressed in PE. In contrast to studies that are dedicated to specific subject categories, this was not the main focus of our analysis. Rather, we recognized that practices of social oppression in PE are based on similar overarching logics and conditions. Thus, many marginalized students were found to have relatable unsettling PE experiences, whereby we do not want to deny their specific experiences of discrimination, highlighted by other researchers (e.g. Hill and Azzarito 2012; Giese et al. 2021; Li and Rukavina 2012).

3. Research dealing with social interactions: in addition to interactional approaches that focus mainly on social interactions and less on the lesson framework (e.g. Munk and Agergaard 2015; O'Connor and Graber 2014), our findings suggest that processes of social hierarchy formation are embedded in a general culture of PE. On this pre-structuring basis, dominance relations are (re)produced by the social construction of vulnerability and the exercise of power by teachers and fellow students. In this unsupportive and hierarchizing PE culture, it is difficult for students to deal with the harmful consequences of their experiences. Thus, their suffering is perpetuated in PE classes and overcoming unsettling experiences becomes a challenging task to be accomplished alone.

However, based on our findings, we are convinced that this cycle can be broken, and it is a major concern of ours to initiate educational reforms through the KMK initiative ‘Safety and Health in Physical Education’ (commissioned by the German Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs). As the didactic setting and lack of adequate support are crucial factors for unsettling PE experiences, pedagogical concepts that emphasize students’ diversity and the dismantling of hierarchies are conceivable. We propose the development of preventive didactic approaches that enhance students’ experiences in different PE situations. Such didactic measures can be implemented through no-go and best-practice examples and incorporated into teacher training to increase awareness. It is evident that there is no single pedagogical solution to eliminate all negative experiences that students encounter. Therefore, we also recommend the establishment of school-based support programs for affected students. However, in order to minimize the extent of unsettling experiences, it is critical to analyze and further develop already existing didactic approaches. In terms of body normativity, a ‘Body Curriculum’ can initiate critical reflections on idealized bodies (Azzarito 2019, 47–60). An attentiveness to students’ issues of embodiment is seen as a key factor in identifying potential barriers to participation and increasing motivation (Shilcutt, Oliver, and Luguetti 2024). In this regard, participatory teaching methods that focus on student autonomy have been demonstrated to facilitate student engagement (Mitchell, Gray, and Inchley 2015). Furthermore, it is recommended to imply non-authoritarian approaches to deconstruct power relations (Fitzpatrick and Russell 2015). Overall, the necessary change on the teaching level must be enforced on an institutional level, e.g. through school policies and curriculum implementation. Thus, academic scholarship is crucial in securing the conditions and generating ideas for radical educational reforms (Kirk 2010).

The scientific community in the field of PE is therefore demanded to put this topic more prominently on its agenda. To this end, we propose the advancement of further research which, following the results and limitations of our study, could focus on teachers’ actions and attitudes, the curriculum, the development and adequacy of pedagogical approaches, as well as short- and long-term health outcomes for students. As a limitation of our study, which exclusively focused on negative experiences, we must note that students also associate PE with numerous benefits for their wellbeing (Røset, Green and Thurston 2020b). Nevertheless, our research has shown a pressing need to destigmatize, offer prompt assistance and prevent students from having unsettling experiences. Studies like ours can guide the way to making the many positive potentials of PE available to as many students as possible, while also ensuring the subject’s professionalism.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the State Accident Insurance Funds Berlin, Brandenburg, Hesse, and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Notes

1 The research project, consisting of three interconnected sub-studies (Hunger et al. 2022), was conducted at the University of Göttingen. It builds on the results of preliminary work by Hunger and Böhlke (2017).

2 The concept of vulnerability is not an externally chosen (pejorative) label here, but emerges inductively from students’ narratives.