The gender subculture of school physical education as viewed through interviews of women physical educators

Abstract

Although the ratio of women teachers in general to men has increased with the advance of women in society, the ratio of women PE teachers to men has not increased for the past 20 years. This is caused by sexism in PE teacher employment regardless of qualification. A gender-based subculture exists in the field of school physical education which is in contradiction of the school culture that has promoted a gender-equal education. The purpose of this study is to discuss the gender subculture in the society of physical educators through interviews with women PE teachers in Japanese high schools. As the result of the interviews with five women PE teachers in five schools in various areas in the H Prefecture, five factors that form the gender subculture in the society of physical educators were identified. Three of these are Gender Order, Women as sport epigone, and Bureaucratic organization as being the spirit carried over from original sport culture, and the remaining two of them are Persistence to dominant school culture and Excessive sense of mission as the raison d'etre of physical education in schools.