Cultural Physical Education and Governance and Control Practices

ABSTRACT

This research investigated the school practices of governance and control of the bodies, considering the potentialities of what is called the cultural curriculum of Physical Education. The methodology, inspired by the concepts of experimentation, is aligned with the philosophy(s) of difference to produce reports of experiences with the proposal in elementary schools. The analysis of the data produced indicates that the experiences with the cultural perspective of Physical Education do not eliminate practices of governance, regulation and control of the bodies, however, they promote other strategies, potentially, less authoritarian, bureaucratic and coercive, as well as bet on ethical approaches than in moralizing control strategies.

Keywords
Physical Education; Philosophy of Difference; Curriculum

RESUMO

A pesquisa em tela investigou as práticas escolares de governamento e controle dos corpos, considerando as potencialidades do que se convencionou chamar de currículo cultural da Educação Física. A metodologia inspirada nos conceitos de experimentação alinha-se à(s) filosofia(s) da diferença para produzir relatos de experiências com a proposta em escolas de Ensino Fundamental. A análise dos dados produzidos indica que as experiências com a perspectiva cultural da Educação Física não eliminam práticas de governamento, regulação e controle dos corpos, no entanto, promovem outras estratégias, potencialmente, menos autoritárias, burocráticas e coercitivas, bem como apostam nas abordagens éticas do que em estratégias de controle moralizantes.

Palavras-chave
Educação Física; Filosofia da Diferença; Currículo

Introduction

Signified as one of the components responsible for the pedagogical treatment of the body and bodily practices, Physical Education, historically, assumed different perspectives and social functions, constituted by different curricular conceptions that reverberate varied views on knowledge (objects), educational objectives, pedagogical principles, didactic-methodological guidelines, evaluation criteria, as well as countless other microdevices such as the organization of classes in relays or queues, overvaluation of individual performance in proposed activities, inclusion or exclusion of students with disabilities, recognition of non-hegemonic bodily practices, among others.

In addition to the biopsychobiological (biopsicobiológico in Portuguese) benefits indicated through sports, dances, fights, gymnastics, games and other bodily practices, a so-called cultural perspective especially highlights the educational value of the pedagogical treatment of a part of general culture called bodily culture.

The curricular theories called post-critical by Silva (2011) present, in this denomination, vagueness and imprecision, as they try to account for a set of theories that problematize the postmodern scenario: a scenario of fluid, irregular and subjective landscapes, whether ethnic, media-related, technological, financial or ideological (Appadurai, 2001¹ apud Lopes, 2013). This set of theories includes post-structural, post-colonial, post-modern, post-foundational and post-Marxist studies (Lopes, 2013).

Mainly from theoretical fields such as cultural studies, critical multiculturalism, postmodernism, feminist studies, postcolonialism, post-structuralism, queer theory, philosophy of difference, some professors, influenced by Silva's classification (2011), began to produce a conception of Physical Education as an alternative to traditional uncritical curricula, linked to physical-sports performance and health promotion, but also to critical curricula based on dialectical materialism or the theory of communicative action.

The post-critical conception of Physical Education (Neira, 2011; 2019; Neira, Nunes, 2006; 2009; 2022) takes as its central point the production of representations and identities through discursive practices referring to games, dances, fights, sports, gymnastics and people who get involved with them, considering that there is no essence in things, nor a fixed identity, since the definition changes according to time and place, depending on power relations.

We reiterate: in the cultural curriculum, students do not stay with what they know; knowledge is not relativized; scientific, technical and school knowledge is not denied, nor is its transmission rejected. What is stated is that knowledge is not the result of the relationship between the knowing subject and the knowable object. With Nietzsche and Foucault we learn that knowledge, the truth of the known object, is inseparable from the singularity of the event, from contingency, from games of force, from power relations, that through different mechanisms a certain knowledge is established and erases the clashes that produced it

(Neira; Nunes, 2022, p. 172).

Therefore, the intention of the present study is, based on curricular experiences developed taking cultural Physical Education into account, to investigate and shift the issue of school practices related to the governance, regulation and control of bodies.

Despite being quite frequent in pedagogical discussions and debates (Varela; Alvarez-Uria, 1992; Chevitarese; Pedro, 1996; Aquino; Ribeiro, 2009; Veiga-Neto, 2000; Carvalho; Gallo, 2010; Noguera-Ramírez, 2011; Marín- Diaz; Noguera-Ramirez, 2012; 2014), the issue of governance and control of bodies within school is often confused with notions of governmentality or other forms of government. Based on Michel Foucault, Marín-Diaz and Noguera-Ramirez (2014) explain that we should not confuse the government, read under the lens of the notion of governmentality, with matters relating only to the State, to political parties, but rather as forms of conduct of one's own conduct and that of others, which authorizes us to affirm that pedagogical practices are, fundamentally, government practices.

In other words, we would say that what Professor Foucault called government can be understood in a much more in-depth way, if, moving away from political and economic doctrines, we get closer to modern pedagogical discourses and practices

(Marín-Diaz; Noguera-Ramírez, 2014, p. 53).

Another important issue is that the theme of governance and control in school spaces is repeatedly approached in a generalist and totalizing manner, applying philosophical concepts that refer to school in a homogeneous and equal way and, almost always, related to institutions such as factories, churches, barracks or prisons.

In the scope of Physical Education, the topic of governance and control is little discussed, except when related to the phenomenon of student indiscipline (Santos et al., 2008; Moura; Prodócimo, 2017; Krug; Krug, 2019). From this perspective, such practices are normally investigated considering only the aspects related to the transgression of norms or the pedagogical contract, with emphasis on the creation of mechanisms to circumvent or avoid these behaviors naturally considered inappropriate. For example, according to Moura and Prodócimo (2017), school indiscipline presents, as main acts, disrespecting the rules, disrupting the development of the class, not carrying out activities, talking, using electronic devices, arguing with the teacher and doing something that deviates from the class standard.

Indiscipline was highlighted by the interns as a problem present in their practices and linked to different difficulties. Soon, as the most cited methodological procedures, blackmail, agreements and dialogue appeared, with the school institution being highlighted as elucidating the rules, rights and duties of students

(Santos et al., 2008, p. 117).

Rarely, research on indiscipline in the component analyzes the forms of school organization themselves; when this happens, they only mention as a positive point the fact that Physical Education has a different dynamic than the classroom components, as the possibility of movement and playfulness in bodily practices provide a less rigid and more pleasant environment. Therefore, not very susceptible to indiscipline. Also sporadically and not very purposefully, research relates pedagogical strategies and devices to issues of indiscipline/body control.

Regarding the way teachers deal with school indiscipline, we obtained some examples, the main ones being: presentation of the rules (not a joint construction), revealing a lack of participation of the school community in the decisions of educational institutions such as the elaboration of the Pedagogical Political Project and school rules and regulations; exclusion, suspension and warnings; the transfer of the problem that occurs in the classroom to the school management and from there to the family and other professional spheres that are not directly involved with the school institution

(Moura; Prodócimo, 2017, p. 61, emphasis added).

The originality of Bonetto's (2021)² investigation systematized here resided precisely in the production of pedagogical experiences that sought to displace more traditional control and governance strategies, in search of new configurations within the scope of culturally oriented Physical Education classes. Therefore, the importance of the notion of experimentation in the methodological field exposed here, which guided us in the creation of pedagogical practices in which we intend to make use of other strategies for governing bodies.

In the cultural curriculum theory of Physical Education, bodily practices are thematized, that is, treated pedagogically through various didactic situations planned with the purpose of helping students qualify their reading and their participation in the production of games, dances, fights, sports and gymnastics. The recording of experiences with this aspect usually takes the form of written or video reports, in which the thematizations are narrated (Borges, 2019).

In order to establish some considerations about the relationship between governance and control practices in the cultural curriculum of Physical Education, this article extracts and presents fragments of six reports of pedagogical experiences carried out between 2019 and 2021, with classes in the initial years of Elementary School at a municipal school located in the western region of São Paulo. It is a school located in an upscale neighborhood of the city, but attended by children of commercial workers or residents in the region. At the time of the study, the institution served 439 students and two periods (morning and afternoon) and 46 education professionals (Bonetto, 2021).

About the Practices of Governance and Control of Bodies

As collective equipment, devices linked to the functioning of societies since the 15th-16th centuries³, schools produced numerous and efficient governance and control practices for their attendees. As if that were not enough, by putting such devices into operation, under certain qualities, types, strategies and specific ways, school spaces activate consistent postures and behaviors, that is, forms of governance and control operate in school subjectivities as much as the knowledge conveyed and the desired identities. Therefore, it is a consensus that in all curricular conceptions there is a direct implication of the forms of governance, regulation and control of bodies, in the subjectivities planned by the pedagogical project.

Carvalho and Gallo (2010) state that one of the substrates that remained in education was (and continues to be) the relationship of leading and being led, a kind of movement that is part of the act of educating itself. Based on the typologies of power described by Michel Foucault, the authors maintain that education reproduces striking acts of a technology called pastoral power: “Pastoral power in its typology, in its organization, in its mode of functioning, the pastoral power that was exercised as power is undoubtedly something from which we have not yet freed ourselves” (Foucault, 2004⁴, p. 152 apud Carvalho; Gallo, 2010). In this art of leading individuals and the collective, nothing can be done without the other and, therefore, guidance takes place under certain traits: responsibility, obedience, submission, examination, confession, deficit (on the part of the ones being led, as they lack something that only the pastor is capable of directing and providing to them), in addition to the renunciation of the new and creation in exchange for security.

Pastoralism is driven by the fuel of harmony. To regulate actions, territorialize them, produce circumcentric homogenization of meanings – to forge the ideal conditions for the right response –, to act in controlling the flow of speeches and subjective discourses, restrict desiring bodies, trim the becoming distinct from the meaning that prevails: this is a pastoralized education; here is a cattle shed; this is a sedentary lifestyle

(Carvalho; Gallo, 2010, p. 292).

If that were not enough, in addition to pastoral power, also based on Michel Foucault, the contemporary school fulfills its function as “childhood government machinery” (Varela; Alvarez-Uria, 1992) in a way analogous to what was produced in so-called disciplinary societies (Chevitarese; Pedro, 1996; Oliveira; Fonseca, 2006; Ayres, 2016; Carvalho; Gallo, 2017). This was due to confinement strategies, routinization of activities, imposition of queues, forms of evaluation based on memorization and recognition, standardization procedures, appreciation of obedience and respect, distribution of hierarchies and functions, as well as the behavioral retributive game and, in some cases, exclusion. It cannot be denied that the school followed pari passu the disciplinary power manual of the first modern Western societies.

Chevitarese and Pedro (1996), when exposing freedom in relation to disciplinary and control societies, describe that, as Foucault clearly highlights, in these, power, instead of appropriating or withdrawing, has the greater function of training. To this end, it uses simple instruments, such as hierarchical surveillance and standardizing sanctions.

Through the normalizing sanction, a system of micropenalties is created that specifies punishments in case of deviations from the desired behaviors. This system is progressively extended to an increasing number of sectors of life, in order to once again maximize the efficiency of the disciplinary device. Disciplinary punishment must be essentially corrective, constituting more of an exercise aimed at improving performance – ‘punishing is exercising’. In order for there to be criteria for applying micropenalties, an entire classificatory and hierarchical system needs to be structured based on what the poles of good or bad behavior mean

(Chevitarese; Pedro, 1996, p. 136).

Thus, discipline manufactures individuals: it is the specific technique of a power that takes the bodies of individuals at the same time as the object and instrument of its exercise. More recently, the school system began to apply a type of power based on caring for the population, called biopolitics. According to Chevitarese and Pedro (1996), schools did not overcome the disciplinary model of governing bodies, but rather promoted an adaptation, a more subtle form of control, which acted to camouflage its effects of constraint under the argument of the need for security. In a more cunning way, it operates through the flexibility and elasticity of its structures, which allows it to spread power relations throughout the social body. Power is then conceived as the action exercised over the action of free and active subjects, to guide and direct them; in this way, the intransigence of freedom is an essential condition for the exercise of power.

In the philosophical field, Gentili (1995), Pelbart (2007) and Marrach (1996) describe the effects of this type of government aimed no longer at the enclosure of the body or individual, but at the control of the population. In the educational sphere, these studies are also numerous and prominent.

Resende (2018) states that biopolitical technology implements mechanisms that deal with estimates, projections, statistics and, especially, interventions and modifications of phenomena scaled on a global level and that correspond to bioregulation. Out of concern for the collective body, so-called security devices emerge that will act as new governance techniques, controlling risks and carrying out interventions in the management of people and things, goods and wealth, so that they circulate in the best possible way. In line with the strategies of neoliberal governmentality, the school machinery focused its efforts on the principles of utility, meritocratic logic, total quality, self-control, learning to learn, focus on skills and abilities, linking the school's function with specific demands of the job market. Foucault (2008, p. 368) used the expression homo economicus to name the subjectivity desired by such a perspective:

Homo economicus is the one who accepts reality. Rational conduct is any conduct that is sensitive to modifications in the environmental variables and that responds to them in a non-random way, in a systematic way, and economics can therefore be defined as the science of the systematicity of responses to environmental variables.

Returning to the relations of governance and control of bodies, other forms of exercising power emerge, linked to another social configuration that, according to Deleuze (1992, p. 221), can be conceived as a “society of control”. In this, punishment or discipline is not given up, surveillance and control are exercised through “[…] ultra-fast forms of control in the open air, which replace the old disciplines that operated within the duration of a closed system”. These are more sophisticated, continuous and unlimited control settings. Control in these societies acts through modulation “[…] like a sieve, whose meshes change from one point to another”, which introduces challenges, prizes, competitions, all the time a rivalry, a notion of investment. Now it is important to extract the maximum amount of energy, to make people participate, to create conditions for each person to feel that they are deciding, producing and replicating control strategies for each other.

Carvalho (2015, p. 05), based on the writings of Félix Guattari, asserts that control, capitalist and consumer societies are sides of the same coin, which is equivalent to thinking about a set of control procedures summoned, in their multiple forms, with the aim of serializing, hierarchizing, compartmentalizing and distributing a model of perception of oneself, others, things and the world.

Everything is always animated to control and block anything that could destabilize the flow of capitalistic control. In other words, no matter what type of society we take into consideration, disorder will always be seen as disorder anywhere. It is as if there were a rationalization of control to exert a power of homogenization and standardization in human attitudes and behaviors, through different flows and forms.

In approximate terms, Pelbart (2000) describes that the emerging control mechanisms would be immanent to the resizing of contemporary globalized capitalism that aims to include everything, in a fine network, in a smooth and open space, with important devices: the media, information technology and biotechnology. In this way, regularity becomes an uninterrupted process that never stops transforming. We observed that, more recently, schools have been incorporating new control equipment and concepts into their devices until reaching the elements of the synoptic plan described by Mathiesen (1997⁵ apud Bauman, 1999, p. 60).

It no longer matters whether the targets of the synoptic, who have now stopped being the watched and have become the watchers, move or stay still. Wherever they are and wherever they go, they can – and do – connect to the extraterritorial network that makes many watch the few. The panopticon forced people into positions where they could be watched. The synoptic does not need coercion – it seduces people into vigilance.

However, Deleuze (1992, p. 220) states that we should not ask ourselves which regime is harsher or more tolerable, as it is in each of them that liberations and subjections are faced. “There is no point in fearing or waiting, but in seeking new weapons.” The analyzes undertaken here regarding control devices, surveillance, regulation and punishment tactics and strategies demonstrate a very complex combination of governance practices. We need to recognize that there is an overlap and the coexistence of very old strategies with others that are not yet applicable to schools. “What counts is that we are at the beginning of something” (Deleuze, 1992, p. 225).

Schizo-experimentations with cultural Physical Education

With an absolutely qualitative profile, inspired by the concepts of event and experimentation, we indicate that the method was produced from the pedagogical practice of a Physical Education teacher, working in a municipal Elementary school located in the city of São Paulo. Fundamentally aligned with Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's philosophy of difference, we call this form of data production schizo-experimentations.

The idea of experimentation is mentioned in Deleuze and Guattari by the displacement of concepts from other philosophers, followed by a very particular, immanent use, which produces differentiations of this concept now in other conditions. Experimentation is related to empiricism and the pragmatism of the philosophy of difference, so that the escape movements, as well as the lines of flight themselves, can, at the same time, mean countless things (desire, thought, affections, the percepts, the body, among others), which are only stimulated through experimentation.

Its main characteristic was the strong opposition to an idea of totality and universality, that is, the philosophy of difference is interested in singularity, multiplicity, immanence and becoming, not in similarities, representations and identities between things. In this conception, difference is that which escapes the thinkable, which, in turn, constitutes and prevents different ways of life. Affirming the difference, enhancing these different ways of thinking, creating, attributing meaning and existing, constitutes its main objective.

Considering these notions, we created our schizo-experimentations with the cultural curriculum of Physical Education. Schizo, from the Greek, means split, cut, crack, rupture, with this prefix, Deleuze and Guattari mobilize both the concept and the character of the schizophrenic⁶, in order to break with the subjective capitalist machines and their social codes. Conceptually, schizo deals with flows, meanings, thoughts, plans and, above all, desire. A productive, uncontrollable, singular desire that makes everything escape the hard lines of overcoding machines.

Still in the field of methodological tools, in order to nourish our experimental work, it is necessary to mention that the events resulting from pedagogical practices and the students' speeches were recorded yearly in journals (diários de bordo - DB).

Another element that characterized the production of these experiences was the sharing of ongoing activities with a group of teacher-researchers who questioned, indicated activities, suggested and launched propositions for research. Subsequently, six texts were produced, in the genre of experience reports, which describe the curriculum developed from the thematization of the following bodily practices: Brazilian funk, samba, soccer, games, k-pop⁷, athletics.

Finally, as effects of our schizo-experimentations with cultural Physical Education, we relate some provisional considerations with excerpts from these experience reports and with DB notes that demonstrate the perspectives produced on the practices of governing and controlling bodies during classes.

Governance and Control Practices from the Perspective of Cultural Physical Education

Foucault understands that arts of governing originated in all societies, some based on the power of a sovereign leader, others on a pastor (religious leader), others on more horizontal, sophisticated conceptions guided by care for the life of a population originating from economic knowledge. However, all the meanings described generate power relations; consequently, they institute truth policies, that is, discourses that produce right and wrong, good and bad, beautiful and ugly. Each perspective, in its own time and context of immanence, creates governance discourses. This gives rise to a complex notion that does not follow a Hegelian form of dialectic, but rather multiple, micro and productive power relations are present through a network of dispersed devices and technologies.

Corroborating this perspective, Pelbart (2007) describes that power is no longer exercised from the outside, from above, but as if from within, it controls our social vitality from start to finish. We are no longer dealing with a transcendent power, or even with a merely repressive power, it is an immanent power, a productive power.

Thus, analyzing the experiences developed with the cultural curriculum at school, we realize that Physical Education classes continue to demand intense and multiple governance, control and regulation practices from students. There is no possibility of giving them up or eliminating them. In this understanding, Borges (2019) points out that cultural pedagogy will focus on the projection of a subject who appears to freely exercise his choices. However, for the subject to practice such freedom, the author alludes to “administered freedom”. In this conception, freedom is absolutely relative, so, at most, it is admitted, with many reservations, that it is a regulated freedom (Donald, 2000⁸ apud Borges, 2019), in which a plurality of possibilities is offered, it is necessary to make forms and rules that work, even if subtle, as ways of regulating conduct. The author also describes two technologies of government of the self undertaken from a cultural perspective, namely, a democratic self and a multicultural self, which in specific form a type of participatory democracy, in which citizen-voters (students) debate and vote on issues of interest to them, also bringing, at the core of their ideas, collective values, the promotion of a supposedly fairer and more democratic environment, active participation and dialogue.

Our data corroborate and strengthen the findings of Borges (2019), indicating that decisions about the curriculum not only take into account a vote or what is in the interest of the majority, but the teacher themself considers such issues within an analysis of the relevance of decisions, regarding the democratization of themes in light of the different announced desires.

We sat and talked, I listened to what they had to say about school and Physical Education. I tried to map out what they expected from classes, what they liked to do, the bodily practices they had contact with from Early Childhood Education until the previous year and what they did when they were outside of school. I recorded everything in a notebook

(Experience report 1, 2017, p. 1 apud Bonetto, 2021, p. 142).

Thus, at the beginning of the curricular experience, recording the main meanings that students had about this sport, we started with very free games, they played, complained, discussed rules, tactics and the organization in creating teams

(Experience report 2, 2018, p. 3 apud Bonetto, 2021, p. 142).

Well, with a speaker and a cellphone connected to the internet, the children asked the teacher to play some songs. Some boys asked for horror songs and game songs. Some girls asked for songs from the children’s soap opera Carrossel (Brazilian 2012 remake based off of Mexican 1989 Carrusel, translator’s note), cartoons and some of them (both boys and girls) asked to listen to Brazilian funk

(Experience report 3, 2019, p. 1 apud Bonetto, 2021, p. 142).

Another problem was that at one point two groups of girls fought, as they wanted different songs and groups to prepare the dance. One of the groups threatened not to participate even after the intervention of the teacher who assured them that everyone could suggest moves, dances and songs

(Experience report 4, 2019, p. 3 apud Bonetto, 2021, p. 143).

From the same perspective, by promoting pedagogical activities to recognize the community's bodily culture, the domains of regulation and governance within pedagogical practices are also democratized. For example, when students had previous experience with a body practice that was being thematized, they were soon invited to share and mediate the activities developed, they organized the activities, made suggestions, corrected and centralized the actions.

As some students described it, we got together in groups and tried out the gestures. Those who knew more were responsible for teaching and helping those who knew less. During some classes, those students who had already participated in soccer classes at soccer-specialized schools taught us some basic soccer exercises

(Experience report 2, 2019, p. 8 apud Bonetto, 2021, p. 144).

Faced with so much knowledge about dance that could still be part of the curricular experience, the teacher invited 9th grade students who also really liked K-pop to participate in the 4th grade lecture, talking a little about the topic and then dancing with the class

(Experience report 4, 2019, p. 4 apud Bonetto, 2021, p. 144).

The visit of the two samba teachers was fundamental to the quality of the curricular experience. With them, samba became more pleasant, charming and closely related to the history of African and Afro-Brazilian peoples

(Experience report 3, 2019, p. 15-16 apud Bonetto, 2021, p. 144).

To further diversify our knowledge about athletics, I thought it would be of great importance to invite Teacher Natalício (Mr. Natal), a coworker at another institution who was a marathon athlete and had already participated in competitions in several countries. The following week, he was at school and talked to the two classes about athletics, especially the marathon, telling in detail his story in the sport

(Experience report 5, 2019, p. 14 apud Bonetto, 2021, p. 144).

As a counterpoint to this democratized relationship within pedagogical practices, Gallo and Figueiredo (2015) assert that the modern school’s place is that of asymmetrical power, the normalization of bodies through discipline and social planning through biopolitics. It is a modern model of school, exhausted, but insistently reformed, renewed by new planning, in which relationships have long ceased to be political and have become police. For the authors, daring to juxtapose and transversalize a space in which the pedagogical relationship is invented in symmetry is to understand a smaller education, a border region, a space for the proliferation of differences, the invention of possibilities that multiply.

Likewise, considering the school, understood as a highly striated collective equipment that, therefore, presents rigidly defined times and spaces, a conservative use of spaces – meaning the game court – and time, the forty-five minutes of a class ministrated in the São Paulo municipal network, was to be expected. However, experiences with the cultural Physical Education curriculum made expanded use of school time and spaces. The reports demonstrated the frequent use of the classrooms, video room, computer room, cafeteria, upper court, square, alley and environments outside the school.

But what is the relationship between this and governance practices? Well, if we think that in disciplinary societies the distribution of bodies in space, the rationalization of spaces and closure, the creation of borders, enclosure, separation into rooms and cells guaranteed obedience and facilitated control and surveillance, the use of unchecked, strongly delimited and traditional spaces has caused, over time, strangeness on the part of students and coworkers.

‘What do you mean, are you going to use my room?’, said a regent teacher; ‘Teacher, before using the court upstairs, it’s better to wait for the renovation to close it’; ‘Teacher, can we rehearse back there?’ asked a group of students who were embarrassed and wanted to do the experience in a distant place; ‘Teacher, are we going by bus? My mother won’t let me’; ‘Teacher, Physical Education class in the art hall? Yes, the room is large, it has large tables and the video room is busy’; ‘I like Physical Education classes because you can climb the hill’; ‘Where are we going to do our presentation? There will be problems if we do it in the principal’s office’; ‘We’re going to do athletics in the square, because we can run a lot without going back and forth, but we don’t have permission, we’re only going because it’s close’

(Bonetto, 2021, p. 148).

Other examples illustrate well the issues of using school spaces in a less closed, smoother way and, consequently, make this territory a more pleasant, fun and vibrant place.

In the next classes, knowing that they coincided with the Elementary II (middle school, translator’s note) break and that the class space is very close to the playground, the teacher invited some older students to participate in the little ones' class, teaching them how to samba

(Experience report 3, 2019, p. 4 apud Bonetto, 2021, p. 151).

While the class was going on, things started to settle down, so that the children during the break were playing and enjoying (their brief period without enclosure) next to the game court, mingling with the students in class. From the point of view of order and regulation, without a doubt, they were recreational classes that seemed messy, without purpose, but that worked very well within the experiments, especially those in which dances were thematized. The loud music invaded the recess and children invaded the court. For those who looked superficially, there was no distinction between spaces and activities. The gates, borders, passages, schedules and rules that were once rigid and customary have become more accessible, flexible and less limiting. The time for activities that were historically less valued or less useful within the school environment was expanded and more valued.

We observed that pedagogical practices with the cultural curriculum rely more on ethical approaches than on moralizing precepts. The first clue to this bet was also given by Borges (2019), when he describes that, although it is possible to notice a certain multicultural normative code in operation, it is important to highlight that such a system of rules and values could be conceived less as a matter of obligation and prohibition strictly rather than incitement and activation of multicultural feelings and values. Analyzing reports of experiences with the cultural curriculum, Borges identified that the practices do not operate through explicit imposition or interdiction and that there is not exactly any restrictive type of moral code, not even when it comes to deconstructing prejudiced and/or stereotypical speeches given by students.

As they proceed reflexively, the subjects of the cultural curriculum work on themselves, self-transform, act on their own feelings and actions related, as specified, to the social markers of differences attached to the thematized bodily practices. The incitement to reflect on certain social markers operates, above all, as a technology of the self that enables the regulation and modification of one's own conduct towards the constitution of a plural, multicultural subjectivity

(Borges, 2019, p. 142).

In this way, the experiments undertaken do not commonly use the norms of the school regulations, much less grades as an element of regulation and threat.

Returning from the July mid-year break, many students no longer wanted to present the choreography they were doing at the June festival (held in honor of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, translator’s note). They also said that earlier it would be a party with dances and that later it would turn into a day of different workshops (crafts, planting, etc.) and, due to that, many would not come to school and, therefore, decided not to perform

(Report by experience 4, 2019, p. 7 apud Bonetto, 2021, p. 177).

On the same day that I thought about the racing activity simulating adaptation for people with visual impairments, I was in doubt whether such an activity romanticized, folklorized disability and adapted practice. We discussed this doubt with the students and the problem of activities that only simulate a condition of disability. We made it clear that it was an attempt to raise awareness, but that it could be a risky pedagogical activity, by suggesting that blindfolding is the same as being blind. The students understood the doubt, we talked about this issue, but we decided to do it anyway

(Experience report 5, 2019, p. 5 apud Bonetto, 2021, p. 178).

Many students participated in the race, others were excited and cheered. At one point, some students began to purposefully guide their classmates towards the wall. One of them ended up colliding and almost hurt himself. We were unable to give adequate treatment to what was observed, I just said that this relationship of trust between those who cannot see and their guide seems to be something very important and that some present there were still not understanding the need for this affinity

(Experience report 5, 2019, p. 6 apud Bonetto, 2021, p. 178).

It wasn't long before some students questioned whether we could really thematize on Brazilian funk at school, as they warned that many of the songs contained swear words. They also said that the school management hated funk, as they never played it at school parties and that, on one occasion, they witnessed a teacher saying that the rhythm was rubbish. [...] In the next class, the students went down to the court like they had never been there before. Incredible energy! Soon, we provided them with a large speaker and an auxiliary cable. So, the students used their own cell phones, connected them to the boombox and the whole class listened. At that moment, some were on their cell phones, saying which songs had swear words and as soon as they were played, part of the group shouted “take that one down, it has swear words! [without anyone telling them anything]”

(Experience report 6, 2018, p. 2 apud Bonetto, 2021, p. 179).

That’s why we defend the thesis that the cultural perspective focuses on governance and control strategies in a more democratic and reflexive way, related to a more ethical and less moral approach. Deleuze (2002), in Spinoza: practical philosophy (Espinosa: filosofia prática), says that ethics is what makes modes of existence arranged in the relationship between individuals and the way in which each one is affected in this encounter. In this understanding, morality is everything that relates to the existence of transcendent values. In effect, there is a disarticulation of the judgment system that opposes values such as good and evil, replacing them with qualitative modes of existence.

In the ethical field, or rather, from the point of view of ethics, such physiological characteristics are consequences of a body's ability to affect and be affected. Thus, affections and encounters are central concepts from this perspective, since nothing has a transcendent value, an absolute truth or a single cause. Absolutely influenced by the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, Deleuze's ethical conception (2002, p. 130) is related to the empowerment or depowerment of forms of existence.

Never, then, is an animal, a thing, separable from its relations with the world: the interior is only a selected exterior; the exterior, a projected interior; the speed or slowness of metabolisms, perceptions, actions and reactions intertwine to constitute such an individual in the world.

In turn, morality is restricted to a system of judgment related to values, norms and rules, the causes of which are little understood and almost never require debate or discussion, since they illustrate the naturalized and transcendent truth. Thus, scolding, reprimands, warnings happen as in every asymmetrical and institutionalized relationship, but we prefer to provoke, as Borges (2019) said, through reflection and analysis of actions.

In this understanding, the context of rules and norms is valued, pointing out that these are provisional conventions and that it is better to reflect on them than to follow them unconditionally. In other words, students exposed to experiences with cultural Physical Education were invited to reflect on forms of governance. The meetings, collectivized decisions and experiments were, without a doubt, more important elements in the elaboration of the classes than the ability to obey and accept what was already stated.

Provisional Considerations

The institution that hosted the study represents very well the stereotypes of the traditional school of modern societies. Ergo, the most relevant teaching task was to intervene in the lines of force that emerge in the school's daily life, thus seeking to impose new/different strategies that transform and/or dismantle the naturalizations produced by the totalitarian logics present in the territory.

Given this scenario, based on the excerpts extracted from the thematization reports, we noticed that the governance and regulation practices preferred in experiences with cultural Physical Education do not dialogue with the exercise of authority, bureaucracy and coercion. Despite this, they do not eliminate governance, regulation and control practices; at most, they try to create other potentially less authoritarian, bureaucratic and coercive strategies. We also see that experiences with the cultural curriculum promote changes in the times and spaces of school activities, expanding them, making the school territory a less striated and possibly more pleasant place for those who live there: the use of the arts hall by the Physical Education teacher, the participation of older students during the samba theme, the integration between the classes that took place in the courtyard and the recess of other classes.

Fragments of the reports demonstrate the frequent use of classrooms, video rooms, computer rooms, cafeterias, “courts above”, squares, alleys and environments outside the school. The activities promoted moments of almost “disorderly” interaction, especially between those who were on break and those participating in the class. Other activities involved the entire school, made use of various spaces in a less closed, smoother way and, consequently, promoted a more pleasant, fun and vibrant territory. The time for historically “less valued” or “less useful” activities within the school environment, in the cultural curriculum, is expanded and more valued.

Finally, we argue that experiences with the cultural curriculum make use of practices of governing bodies, focusing more on an ethical approach than on moralizing and normative practices. The finding corroborates the study by Borges (2019). No matter how visible a certain multicultural normative code is in operation, it is important to highlight that such a system of rules and values can be conceived less as a matter of obligation and prohibition than as an incitement and activation of multicultural feelings and values. They do this, investing in collectivized decisions, in moments of reflection, contextualization and, why not, criticism of school norms and traditions.

• 1
  APPADURAI, Arjun. Modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization (La modernidad desbordada: dimensiones culturales de la globalización). Buenos Aires: FCE, 2001.
• 2
  This article is an excerpt from the doctoral thesis Schizo-experimentations with the cultural curriculum of Physical Education (Esquizo-experimentações com o currículo cultural da Educação Física), defended in 2021 at the Postgraduate Program in Education at the University of São Paulo.
• 3
  According to Fusinato and Kramer (2013), Brazilian curricular guidelines, school regulations and daily routines in schools impose the institutionalization of mechanisms present in schools in the 15th/16th centuries.
• 4
  FOUCAULT, Michel. Security, territory, population (Sécurité, territoire, population). Paris: Gallimard; Seuil, 2004.
• 5
  MATHIESEN, Thomas. The Viewer Society: Michel Foucault’s “Panopticon” Revisited. Theoretical Criminology, v. 1, n. 2, p. 215-234, 1997.
• 6
  Deleuze and Guattari do not reduce schizophrenia to the disease, autism, a catatonic collapse. On the contrary, they extract from it the process, free production of desire, a revolutionary flow over machines.
• 7
  Korean Pop, direct translation of popular Korean music.
• 8
  DONALD, James. Well-regulated freedom (Liberdade bem-regulada, direct translation). In: COHEN, Jeffrey. Monster pedagogy: the pleasures and dangers in confusing frontiers (Pedagogia dos monstros: os prazeres e os perigos da confusão de fronteiras, direct translation). Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2000. p. 61-88.

Availability of research data:

The dataset supporting the results of this study is published in this article.

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Edited by

Editor in charge: Luís Armando Gandin

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  02 Aug 2024
• Date of issue
  2024

History

• Received
  09 Apr 2023
• Accepted
  04 Oct 2023