PHYSICAL EDUCATION THAT DOES NOT CHOOSE WELCOMES

Abstract

The objective of this study is to understand how Physical Education teachers who work inspired by the cultural curriculum approach the differences in their pedagogical practices. This is a qualitative study, with an ethnomethodological approach and guided by queer theory. Four Physical Education teachers from Colégio Pedro II participated in the research. The data collection method was a semi-structured interview. The five key concepts of ethnomethodology were used as a priori categories to help understand and analyze the data. This study is justified by the fact that several culturally oriented didactic-pedagogical paths impede the becoming of unpredictability of differences. We conclude that the queer theoretical framework enhances the power of reflection and contestation of the cultural curriculum of Physical Education, because it prevents that teaching actions in favor of marginalized identities and groups become new essentialisms.

Keywords:
Physical Education; Curriculum; Social Identification; Individual differences.

Resumo

O objetivo deste estudo é compreender como professores de Educação Física que atuam inspirados pelo currículo cultural abordam as diferenças em suas práticas pedagógicas. Trata-se de um estudo qualitativo, com enfoque etnometodológico e norteado pela teoria queer. Participaram da pesquisa quatro professores de Educação Física do Colégio Pedro II. O método de coleta de dados foi a entrevista semiestruturada. Utilizaram-se os cinco conceitos-chave da etnometodologia como categorias a priori para auxiliar na compreensão e análise dos dados. Justifica-se este estudo em função dos vários caminhos didático-pedagógicos culturalmente orientados que impedem o devir da imprevisibilidade das diferenças. Concluímos que o aporte teórico queer potencializa o poder de reflexão e contestação do currículo cultural de Educação Física, pois evita que ações docentes a favor de identidades e grupos marginalizados se transformem em novos essencialismos.

Palavras-chave:
Educação Física; Currículo; Identidade social; Diferenças individuais.

Resumen

El objetivo de este estudio es comprender cómo los profesores de Educación Física que trabajan inspirados en el currículo cultural abordan las diferencias en sus prácticas pedagógicas. Se trata de un estudio cualitativo, con enfoque etnometodológico, guiado por la teoría queer. Participaron en la investigación cuatro profesores de Educación Física del Colegio Pedro II. El método de recogida de datos fue la entrevista semiestructurada. Los cinco conceptos clave de la etnometodología se utilizaron como categorías a priori para ayudar a comprender y analizar los datos. Este estudio se justifica por el hecho de que varias vías didáctico-pedagógicas culturalmente orientadas impiden el devenir de la imprevisibilidad de las diferencias. Concluimos que el aporte teórico queer potencia el poder de reflexión y contestación del currículo cultural de la Educación Física, porque evita que las acciones docentes a favor de las identidades y grupos marginados se conviertan en nuevos esencialismos.

Palabras clave:
Educación física; Plan de estudios; Identificación Social; Individuales diferencias.

1 INTRODUCTION

Physical Education, committed to contributing to the construction of a welcoming, supportive, equanimous, and democratic world, puts the modern curriculum project, with its centralities, hierarchies, and truths, into suspension; it presents, within the contemporary school, the cultural curriculum as an alternative in favor of differences (NEIRA; NUNES 2009; NUNES, 2018; NEIRA; SANTOS, 2019; BARBOSA; BUENO, 2019; DUARTE; NEIRA, 2020).

Despite being politically engaged and aligned with democratic principles that advocate equal and equitable schooling for different people (MARTINS, 2017) and socially excluded groups (SANTOS, 2016), many teachers, when putting the cultural curriculum of Physical Education into action, end up adopting an identity bias that imprisons differences (NUNES, 2018).

This type of didactic conduction has harmful effects in Physical Education, because it restricts the differences, in an insufficient and exclusive way, to social identity markers. Master markers (CANEN; GRANT, 2001) that “dictate the progress of the pedagogical process” (NUNES, 2018, p. 123) and sometimes end up silencing the construction of the differentiation process.

As Gallo (2015) and Vieira (2020) point out, working with pre-established minority identities, a traceable, identifiable difference, prevents further creations and causes a state of moralization of differences.

It is worth mentioning that temporary unequal treatment is justified as a way to restore equality among individuals and is not enough to benefit anyone (MOEHLECKE, 2009). However, if these teaching actions are long-lasting and only of a reparatory nature, “what takes place is a ‘theft’ of the multiple voices that are erased by the hegemonic signs (‘gay’, ‘woman’, ‘proletariat’, ‘black’) that claim to bear the ultimate truth of all ‘others’” (COLLING, 2015, p.16).

That said, we reflect that “even with the best of intentions, the arguments and some actions that have been generated from this paradigm end up being reductionist and exclusionary (MISKOLCI, 2011; BENTO, 2011; COLLING, 2013)” (COLLING, 2015, p. 26).

The path chosen as a form of resistance against these didactic-pedagogical devices, which insist on obscuring teachers and, correspondingly, hinder the effectiveness of a truly democratic educational proposal for all, starts from a “conceptual instability” in the use of “identity” as a category of analysis.

For this purpose, guided by queer theory, we use the term “TRANSidentity” to elucidate the transient, relational, multiple, de-centered, fragmented, fluid, displaced, performative, and liquefied nature of identities (COLLING, 2013; BUTLER, 2010; BAUMAN, 2009, 2001; BRAH, 2006; KNUDSEN, 2006).

Our intention is to recognize that every identity is a “TRANSidentity”, singular and crossed by multiple oppressions that operate in an intersectional way (GONÇALVES; SILVA, 2021). Thus, it makes no sense to restrict identity changes only to transgender people; nor even assume that identities between subjects classified into identical categories are equal (MCDONALD, 2013). After all, we are all equivalent but “non-identical” human beings (SCOTT, 1988).

We are aware that by provoking teachers and students to reflect “Why aren’t we all ‘TRANSidentities’?” we raise the flag of awareness (FREIRE, 2018), fundamental in welcoming the infinite and unlikely differences.

The pedagogical use of “TRANSidentity”, based on inter, multi and transdisciplinary knowledge, embraces the demands and needs of a democratic, inclusive society permeated by the differences with which we live, (ARAÚJO, 2011); it emphasizes “the plurality internal to each identity” (BENTO, 2011, p. 80), that is, the differences within the differences (CRENSHAW, 1991; SANTOS, 2001; MISKOLCI, 2009; COLLING, 2015) and the consequences of the interaction among them (BEAUVOIR, 2005; BRAH, 2006; PISCITELLI, 2008; MISKOLCI, 2009; COLLINS, 2015); it hinders the emergence of pedagogical pitfalls that produce “ghettoizations” and “universalizes particularisms” (BOURDIEU, 1998, p. 148).

We seek with this text to adduce that at all times many individual differences are reified into putative social identity markers and need to resist normative labels, prejudices, and social discriminations. The struggle is against this subjection, against the submission of subjectivities, which is “becoming increasingly important, despite the fact that struggles against forms of domination and exploitation have not disappeared” (FOUCAULT, 2010, p. 244).

Although there is a solid framework of scientific production committed to the acceptance of differences in cultural Physical Education, we consider that this study starts from some gaps found in the literature, such as: 1) absence of studies that proposed to analyze and problematize asymmetric power relations between individuals integrating the same social identity marker; 2) absence of studies that proposed to analyze and problematize the differences formed within the differences; 3) limited amount of studies that proposed to expand the potential of identity contestation, beyond the signs considered culturally hegemonic and minoritarian; 4) limited amount of studies which proposed to analyze and problematize the binary logic resulting from the identity normalization process which occurs in curricular projects based on pre-established minority identities; 5) limited amount of studies which proposed to promote the pedagogical transcription of culturally oriented experiences in Physical Education; 6) limited amount of studies which use the queer theory and its key-concepts to analyze and problematize the identity production, not restricted only to sexual and gender identities.

The aim of this study is to understand how Physical Education teachers who work inspired by the cultural curriculum approach differences in their pedagogical practices.

This study is justified in light of the fact that various culturally oriented didactic-pedagogical paths “hinder the becoming of the unpredictability of differences” (SANTOS, 2016).

In this way, we try to reflect Physical Education as a learning space based on welcoming, hospitality, and otherness¹ (LÉVINAS, 1999), without any kind of choice or preference for one or another group, one or another identity, one or another difference.

2 METHODOLOGY

We opted for a qualitative study, which, according to Bogdan and Biklen (1994), seeks to understand human behavior by describing how social actors construct their meanings and what these meanings consist of.

The ethnomethodological approach adopted highlights the methods by which these social actors “update” their rules (COULON, 1995; SILVA; VOTRE, 2012), allowing them to observe, analyze, understand, and describe the pedagogical practice of each teacher, in addition to determining what their sum does collectively.

The study was carried out at Colégio Pedro II (CPII), São Cristóvão III campus (SCIII), an appropriate place for our research because it is considered a fertile field for pedagogical initiatives inspired by the cultural curriculum of Physical Education.

Two criteria were used to select the teachers participating in the research: 1) to be a permanent employee of the CPII permanent staff; 2) to have at least three years of experience in the SCIII campus. Thus, four teachers from the Physical Education staff at SCIII were considered qualified for the research and one teacher was excluded because she had only been a CPII permanent staff member at SCIII for one year.

The method chosen to collect data was the semi-structured interview, which is one of the “main instruments of qualitative research, especially because there is no rigid imposition of questions, which allows the interviewee to discuss the proposed theme ‘respecting their frames of reference’, highlighting what is most relevant to them, with the words and the order that suits them best, and enabling the immediate and current capture of the desired information” (AMADO; FERREIRA, 2013, p. 209).

The interview was conducted and recorded, after the voluntary signature of the Informed Consent Form (ICF), through the Google Meet videoconferencing tool. Although we used our own script to guide the interview, the interviewees’ speech was what guided us during this process, so that some questions were restructured when we saw the need.

All answers were reviewed, confirmed and duly validated by the respondents.

The development of the research was authorized according to the consubstantiated opinion of the Research Ethics Committee n. 4 905 534. The study was only initiated after formal authorizations from this committee and from the administration of CPII, campus SCIII.

3 RESULTS ANALYSIS

To assist in this comprehensive process, we connected the five key concepts of Ethnomethodology: practice, indiciality, reflexivity, relatability, and notion of membership (COULON, 1995), with five categories derived from the interactions that the research variables presented in the data analysis.

3.1 REFLEXIVITY AND “TRANSIDENTITY”

For Garfinkel (2018), the concept of reflexivity presupposes the recognizable rational properties of individuals from the common sense they present of the things they say or do in their interaction contexts. Objectively speaking, individuals possess common sense knowledge that enables them to act and speak in the face of unfamiliar conditions, giving them predictability to know how to react according to contextual actions.

In the following excerpts, it is observed that reflexivity is shown as a starting and ending element for the teachers to present a minimum of certainty to describe and argue about the term ‘TRANSidentity’, something new and unknown.

We come from a school Physical Education in which few identities were valued. [...] I believe that ‘TRANSidentity’ is in search of working different identities and, above all, valuing the various possibilities of identities in Physical Education (INTERVIEW, T1, 2021, emphasis added).

[...] The identity standards that once seemed stable and fixed are now being questioned. The term ‘TRANSidentity’ brings me to a perspective of transdisciplinary education that would involve a learning built on respect for all identities, with the idea of teaching to live and coexist with all differences. A Physical Education that problematizes identity standards and brings to its performance space other voices, identities (INTERVIEW, T3, 2021, emphasis added).

In both cases, teacher 1 (T1) and teacher 3 (T3), influenced by post-critical education theoretical references, of criticism of modern principles and emphasis on differences, attribute to the term ‘TRANSidentity’ a meaning analogous to the cultural curriculum; characterizing it as a process of paradigm shift, of encouraging a democratic formative trajectory, which “recognizes the value of all identities” (NEIRA, 2010, p. 179) and presents itself “in favor of differences” (NEIRA; NUNES 2009; NUNES, 2018; NEIRA; SANTOS, 2019; BARBOSA; BUENO, 2019; DUARTE; NEIRA, 2020).

T1 and T3 regret, through reflexivity, that Physical Education has, throughout its historical process of schooling, prioritized certain identities and, consequently, neglected differences:

The cultural curriculum recognizes that in the history of Physical Education a set of identities were more valued in detriment of others. In this sense, we seek to problematize: Why only these identities and groups are being represented by bodily practices in Physical Education spaces? Why are these identities and groups more valued? What are the consequences of the valorization of these identities and groups and the silencing and invisibility of others? These questions end up bringing to the Physical Education space bodily practices that value previously silenced identities, identities of minority groups. For example, bodily practices of indigenous culture opposing the valorization of white, heterosexual, American, and Eurocentered bodily practices. It is not simply playing shuttlecock! It is bringing shuttlecock, a bodily practice constituted in the indigenous culture, broadening and deepening knowledge about these cultures, these stories of struggle (INTERVIEW, TEACHER 3, 2021, emphasis added).

In this regard, Silva (2007) points out that curriculum studies, for at least a decade, have been denouncing how school curricula act to homogenize subjects in favor of the formation of a fixed, static, and immutable identity, valuing a certain way of being and depreciating others.

Neira and Nunes (2009) defend the cultural curriculum as the most appropriate for contemporary times, in which identities are fragmented, hybridized, and changing every day. Despite the agreement with the authors, “TRANSidentity” transcends the simple replacement of the archetypical white-male-hetero Christian subject by another predetermined subject with other putative minority marks, male-black-poor-homosexual-disabled-candoblecist. It seeks, in fact, the valorization of a utopian and free-spirited subject, which denies an identity and assumes thousands, which is always formulating itself, in a constant and transitory becoming; fundamental action that ensures the improbability of the subject that one wants to form from the cultural curriculum of Physical Education (NEIRA; NUNES, 2009, p. 139).

Another prominent point in the reflexivity of T3 is the association between “TRANSidentity” and transdisciplinary education. This pedagogical stance, which enunciates an attitude of empathy and openness to the other and their knowledge, has a marked influence from Cultural Studies.

Neira and Nunes (2009) cite that Cultural Studies “contribute to the construction of a new social function for the school, based on the reception and incorporation to the curriculum of knowledge originated from other cultural groups” (p. 191). This transdisciplinary and multifaceted vocation of cultural studies (COSTA; SILVEIRA; SOMMER, 2003, p. 57) proposes, among other things, to “take sides with underprivileged groups in power relations” (NEIRA; NUNES, 2009, p. 192).

Although the cultural curriculum of Physical Education, based on Cultural Studies, prioritizes in its practices the weaker side (NEIRA; NUNES 2009), the minorities (PRYSTHON, 2003), we cannot forget that the weaker side is multifaceted and that, despite being “similar”, we are not “equal”. In Brazil, for example, heteronormative gays, lighter-skinned blacks, and submissive women present more passing than effeminate gays, blacks, and feminists.

As Beauvoir (2005, p. 82) warns, “the oppressor would not be so strong if he had no accomplices among the oppressed”. Fixing one’s gaze on pre-established minority identities can result in new identity essentialisms and determine a homogeneous treatment to people and groups, inhibiting a clearer perception of the presence of prejudice and discrimination among social actors who are part of the same identity marker.

Using the example of volleyball. Each class is composed of a vast heterogeneity of identities; different students with different characteristics (height, weight, skills, knowledge, emotional state, experiences). I try not to identify the students based on these references and differences, but rather, to offer a collective, predominantly cooperative, work, discarding any marking by skill. […] It is necessary to make the students understand that not always the shortest will have the best reception, the tallest will have the best block, or the strongest will be the best attacker. These marks that identify them interrelate with the external world and cannot define, standardize, or stigmatize them as individuals, identities, or performance. There is no place in the condition of being human for any kind of imposed standard (INTERVIEW, T4, 2021, emphasis added).

“TRANSidentity” amplifies the power of contestation of the cultural curriculum of Physical Education, because it continuously investigates and problematizes the power relations produced internally in these social identity markers, highlighting the crossings that bring to the stage of problematization other marks of oppression and other forms of exclusion.

3.2 RELATABILITY AND PLANNING

Relatability is directly linked to the concept of reflexivity, because it is based on the logic that if there is a conscious reflexivity, it can be minimally described through language, thus making it intelligible and describable (COULON, 1995).

In the following excerpts, the teachers emphasize their craft, presenting and sharing their pedagogical practice in an understandable and transmissible way.

I worked on a documentary called ‘Altinha’ that portrays the history of a carioca sport commonly played on Ipanema beach, where the game is believed to have been born. In this documentary, which takes place in the south zone of Rio de Janeiro, several possibilities for dialogue with various identities arise: gender, race, class. As much as my planning already had some possible signs, such as talking about the difficulty of finding blacks and women in these spaces; it is important that the discussions respect the characteristics of the class (INTERVIEW, T1, 2021, emphasis added).

Invariably, the issues related to class, race, and gender are what appear most in my classes. With the soccer theme, for example, gender is a pressing issue in almost 90% of my classes. My planning with soccer will, then, generally follow in the discussions of gender and issues related to the doing, the technique (INTERVIEW, T2, 2021, emphasis added).

It can be noted that both plans present a demarcated influence of Cultural Studies, contributing “decisively for groups and subjects that experience situations of oppression to identify and resist asymmetric power relations” (NUNES; NEIRA, 2018, p. 117).

Our reservation is about the exclusivity that social identity markers occupy in curricular projects of cultural Physical Education, as if they were the only underprivileged ones in power relations. This kind of didactic conduct has deleterious effects on the teaching-learning process of Physical Education, because sometimes they end up homogenizing the differences, ignoring the “plurality internal to each identity” (BENTO, 2011, p. 80), that is, the differences within the differences (CRENSHAW, 1991; SANTOS, 2001; MISKOLCI, 2009; COLLING, 2015) and the consequences of the interaction among them (BRAH, 2006; PISCITELLI, 2008; MISKOLCI, 2009; COLLINS, 2015), preventing the becoming of the unpredictability of differences (SANTOS, 2016).

We do not disregard the advances already achieved by culturally oriented experiences in Physical Education and their solid contribution to the construction of more democratic pedagogical practices.

In fact, the pedagogical use of the term “TRANSidentity” presents itself as a concrete possibility in the reduction of a series of pedagogical pitfalls commonly found in cultural curricula of Physical Education (SANTOS, 2016; GONÇALVES; SILVA, 2021).

“TRANSidentity” makes it understandable that the indiscriminate use of identity categories such as poor, rich, white, black, male, female, gay or straight, as if these signs represent universal, essential, a-historical, apolitical, and stable categories, prevents debate about the exclusions that such categories produce (BUTLER, 1993).

Women are ‘educated’ since childhood to deal with specific bodily practices, unlike men. They, male students, are more skilled in bodily practices because we, teachers, value them historically in Physical Education. I had a female student, recently arrived from a competitive examination, who was always very withdrawn in classes/activities with traditional sports. Visibly her previous relationship with this type of bodily practice was not very nice because she always stayed on the periphery of the court. I made a tremendous effort to get her to participate, always making it clear that the goal was not to demand performance, but to experience it in order to get to know it. At the end of the quarter when I announced that the next theme would be capoeira, she said: ‘Really, teacher? That is so cool! Boy, I really like capoeira. My father is a capoeira master’. This action surprised me. I didn’t expect this kind of behavior from her, but I was pleased to see how happy the student was when she realized that we would have classes with practices she had never imagined she would experience before (INTERVIEW, TEACHER 3, 2021, emphasis added).

According to Gallo (2015) and Vieira (2020), a systematized planning in pre-established minority identities, gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, among others, makes the reading and interpretation of power relations reduced, as if the phenomena of racism, male chauvinism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, fatphobia, transphobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, and classism were fixed principles, without crossings and contradictions.

3.3 INDICIALITY AND “FANTASTIC FOUR”

The concept of indiciality refers to a set of ideas that has “trans-situational” meaning; ideas that surpass their own literal meaning, without the need for detailed verbal explanation (COULON, 1995).

The identification of a natural and customary language, which represents the real everyday language in use, was extracted from the information provided by teacher 4 (T4). When asked if there is in his planning a different student identity profile from those traditionally identified as social identity markers, the teacher reported:

The identities that are not skilled. Students who, for example, don’t like the ‘fantastic four; they don’t like the sports, soccer, basketball, volleyball and handball (INTERVIEW, T4, 2021, emphasis added).

With a derogatory character, the term “fantastic four” is usually used not only by the members who compose this group of interviewed teachers, but also by many members of Brazilian School Physical Education who try to resist the dictates of sport as hegemonic content, offered technically as sport training.

It is noticeable that the interviewee uses an indicative term to refer to the teaching of the four sports - white, from the northern hemisphere and with strong Christian and masculine roots - historically privileged by Physical Education. The predominance of these European and American bodily practices made it impossible for body cultural references of the Brazilian people to enter the spaces of Physical Education classes (NEIRA; NUNES, 2009).

It is essential to understand that students are different, so, the practice of Physical Education cannot be limited only to universal contents and themes (soccer, volleyball, basketball and handball), because we would be excluding many identities from Physical Education classes; prioritizing only hegemonic identities. By valuing difference as an important component in the formation of the student, we diversify the bodily practices worked on, we thematize these bodily practices with different senses and meanings, and, thus, we fill out and broaden the students’ outlook. The more plural/diversified my class is, the wider my view on bodily practices is, the better the education of the subject and the appreciation of differences within the same class will be (INTERVIEW, TEACHER 2, 2021).

According to Neira and Nunes (2009, p. 221): “Currently, Brazilian curricula have been slowly decolonized with the insertion of the points of view, history, knowledge and productions of blacks, indigenous people, gypsies, caiçaras, various ethnic groups, women and other colonized identities”.

By refuting the predominance and exclusivity of European and American bodily practices in Physical Education, we can see in the interviewee’s position the principles of post-colonial critical multicultural thinking (BHABHA, 1998; MCLAREN, 2000).

Beyond a stand for those who suffered, and still suffer, from the heavy hand of colonial imperial power, “TRANSidentity” opens up to differences in order to challenge the processes of normalization - not only the production of the abnormal, but also the production of the normal (SULLIVAN, 2003).

Without limiting ourselves to binaries (colonizers versus colonized; whites versus blacks; men versus women; skilled versus unskilled etc.), what we propose with the pedagogical use of the term “TRANSidentity” is to destabilize and question the multiple systems of oppression that use institutionalized categories and identities to regulate and socialize subjects (COHEN, 1997).

3.4 NOTION OF MEMBERSHIP AND MAPPING

To be a member is to have mastery of the group’s common language, to interact with others from networks of inter-relational signification, and to understand the social world in which one is inserted without great rational efforts, but only by the natural belonging of one’s socialization (COULON, 1995).

The following excerpts demonstrate a common savoir faire (know-how) among the Physical Education teachers of CPII, campus SCIII. T3 and T4 teachers, influenced by the principles and didactic procedures of the cultural curriculum of Physical Education, share the same type of natural language that guides their ways of acting and their activities.

[...] a girl who has not had experience with soccer because she is a woman, and historically and culturally this practice is conditioned to males, has more difficulty in understanding the dynamics of the game. I start from these issues diagnosed in the initial mapping, but this does not prevent me from valuing other identities that emerge during the classes and include them in the problematization and reflection that I am proposing (INTERVIEW, TEACHER 2, 2021, emphasis added).

The premise of the curriculum is to value all the different identities, but I do not know deeply which are all the Physical Education curricula of Colégio Pedro II; what I can say is that all are born from this centrality. In SCIII, we start from the mapping of the whole school community (INTERVIEW, T3, 2021, emphasis added).

Forró was inserted in the curriculum of São Cristóvão III when we identified in the mapping of the students that parts of their families had some or some members of Northeastern origin, grandparents, uncles, parents. Moreover, because the school itself is located in front of the Center of Northeastern cultural traditions, we witnessed many interactions between Cariocas and Northeasterners who work, live and visit the neighborhood (INTERVIEW, T4, 2021, our emphasis).

According to Neira (2018), the didactic situations (mapping, reading of bodily practice, experiences, re-signification, deepening, broadening, recording, and evaluation) vary according to context and objectives, with the exception of mapping. It all starts with mapping. This didactic procedure means investigating the practices that are part of the students’ cultural heritage, which includes their experiences and access to bodily practices inside and outside school.

Mapping also allows subjects and groups seen as different to have their forms of manifestation valued and, consequently, their characteristics, peculiarities, voices, subjectivities, identities, and differences made visible.

Understanding that the cultural curriculum promotes cultural intersections and the overcoming of prejudices, we invited the students of the 3rd year of high school to experience forró and reflect on this bodily practice during a whole trimester. During the classes, besides experiencing the basic forró steps, we sought to broaden and deepen their knowledge about this manifestation by questioning issues such as: gender issues, which appear in music lyrics that devalue Northeastern women; social class issues, analyzing why many Northeasterners are driven to leave their hometowns to seek better living conditions in other regions of the country; issues that, in general, involve xenophobic and prejudiced attitudes against Northeasterners; among other discussions that emerge from the dialogues. The culmination of these experiences takes place at the Center for Northeastern Cultural Traditions itself. On this day all students of the 3rd year, for a period (hours), are introduced to the space, stimulated to learn a little more about the Northeastern culture, interact with people, interview Northeasterners who work in the space and, finally, invited to dance forró (INTERVIEW, TEACHER 4, 2021, emphasis added).

“TRANSidentity” transforms the cultural curriculum of Physical Education into a living curriculum, open to an even more radical dialogue with differences, with new social actors, with unlikely subjects. Such context favors the problematization of previously veiled power relations - oppressions, discriminations and prejudices against people who actually have fewer chances and are totally invisibilized, for example: the participation of trans women, transvestites and effeminate gays as jokers² in the São João festivities in the Northeast.

3.5 PRACTICE AND MOVEMENT

The concept of practice, or realization, seeks to examine the methods that social actors employ to make sense of and carry out their practical, everyday activities. The actions developed by the actors are guided by their practical reasoning, a result of the particular moments lived and experienced in each interactional act (COULON, 1995).

We follow in the reports below a kind of constant movement of (re)construction, (re)elaboration and re-signification of the practice of teachers 1 (T1) and 2 (T2).

[...] my role as a teacher also needs to be constantly revisited and modified to fulfill this function of assisting as many identities as possible. Thinking of myself as self-sufficient would make me lose this constant movement of improvement and transformation. I think it is healthy not to be totally satisfied and keep trying because that is what allows me to be always reassessing the conduct of my practices (INTERVIEW, T1, 2021, emphasis added).

The cultural curriculum is a curriculum that demands a great deal of effort from the teacher in terms of cognition and culture. At all times it is necessary that teachers expand and renew their cultural capital; constantly feed their pedagogical practice by reading, watching podcasts, checking newspapers, visiting blogs; revising their pedagogical process in order to avoid that specific identities are privileged in detriment of others; re-signifying their classes. [...] I am in this movement, on this path, inspired mainly by including all identities and valuing differences (INTERVIEW, T2, 2021, emphasis added).

In both cases, it is clear that once familiarized with the post-critical references and with the cultural pedagogical experience in Physical Education, the professional life of these teachers suffered, and still suffers, important modifications. In the words of Oliveira Junior (2017, p. 67): “it is essential to continue provoking a moving spirit in the curriculum, in pedagogy, in pedagogical practice, in Physical Education, etc.”.

Physical Education is very different from other subjects. The dynamics of the class presents us with different storylines based on the body and oral language of each student. The teacher cannot close their eyes to the emergence of other identities or to the emergence of other gaps, which require other reflections and other problematizations that may appear during the process. It is increasingly important that these other non-traditional identity markers appear in class and even if these markers do not appear in class, it is essential to include them so that students have an understanding of what the world is (INTERVIEW, TEACHER 2, 2021).

“TRANSidentity” “destabilizes education specialists and opens spaces for all teachers to become curriculists” (NEIRA; NUNES, 2009 p. 138). Unbalanced and stimulated by a movement of ethical and pedagogical commitment in favor of welcoming differences, including differences formed within differences, teachers become less scholarly and more cultural, less teacher-like and closer to the artist, rewriting daily and during classes a new democratic pedagogical practice (NEIRA; NUNES, 2009).

4 CONCLUSION

It is not at all easy to find the right and balanced measure for a discourse in defense of differences that respects the singular identity possibility.

“TRANSidentity” points to the curricular projects based on pre-established minority identities as inattentive to the pluralities within each identity; it contributes, in a decisive way, to the questioning of the binary oppositions on which the process of fixing identities is based; it refutes identity standards and preferences that occur in political-educational projects.

Thus, our reflective effort is to affirm that we need to put into action educational projects, curricula, and pedagogical practices that claim a non-fixed place of struggles. After all, truth is neither here nor there.

Although the research is limited to a micro field of Physical Education, a single school, we consider that the pedagogical use of “TRANSidentity” stimulates teachers to revisit, reflect, and re-signify their didactic routines, proposing new pedagogical creations and transcreations open to unnoticed events, welcoming other stories, narratives, accounts, pluralities, singularities, identities, and differences.

It is suggested that the school and Physical Education consider the curriculum as a living space, as a “TRANSidentity document” (GONÇALVES; SILVA, 2021, p. 7), capable of welcoming unlikely subjects and not only choosing identities socially prejudged as inferior, since sub-marginalized identities formed and excluded within these minority identity markers also need to be made visible, welcomed, and problematized.

We believe that the results and discussions of this research point to a pedagogical path that is still full of restlessness and unraveling around the theme. “TRANSidentity is just a look, among many others, that may bring more reflection to the difficult task of welcoming the differences in conditions of equity in Physical Education classes.

Thus, we conclude that the intellectual freedom practiced with “TRANSidentity” is a permanent invitation to the exercise of teaching, because a resilient educator “becomes an educator, permanently, in the practice and in the reflection on his/her practices” (FREIRE, 1991, p. 589).

• 1
  Otherness refers to the identity of the “other”, considering their unique characteristics and everything that constitutes this subject (LÉVINAS, 1999).
• 2
  Popular artists dedicated to traditional folklore.
• FUNDING
  The present work was carried out with the support of the Salgado de Oliveira University.

• HOW TO REFERENCE

  GONÇALVES, Carlos Henrique Rego; SILVA, Carlos Alberto Figueiredo da. Physical Education that does not choose welcomes. Movimento, v. 29, p. e29003, Jan./Dec. 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22456/1982-8918.124789

RESEARCH ETHICS

The research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Salgado de Oliveira Association for Education and Culture and registered under protocol n. 5.103.778.

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Edited by

EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Alex Branco Fraga*, Elisandro Schultz Wittizorecki*, Mauro Myskiw*, Raquel da Silveira*

*Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, School of Physical Education, Physical Therapy and Dance, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  25 Aug 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  13 June 2022
• Accepted
  21 Dec 2022
• Published
  15 Mar 2023