The article discusses the persistent centrality of the "Swedish gymnastics" for the orientation of physical education in Portugal, along the first decades of the 20 th century, and the different receptions that was targeted. In the first part, the text focuses on the centrality acquired by the "Swedish gymnastics" in multiple geopolitical spaces, in the context of the consolidation of mass schooling. In the second part, the text documents and analyzes some interpretive movements that occurred in the reception of "Swedish gymnastics" in Portugal, in the period between 1920 and 1940, together with several educational, social and political realignments that accompanied these conflicts about their "correct" mobilization for the Portuguese school context.
Educational knowledge; Physical education; Schooling; Swedish gymnastics