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FAMILIARITY AND STRANGENESS: THE ETHNOGRAPHIC METHOD IN THE INITIAL TRAINING OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION STUDENTS

FAMILIARIDADE E ESTRANHAMENTO: O MÉTODO ETNOGRÁFICO NA FORMAÇÃO INICIAL DE ESTUDANTES DE EDUCAÇÃO FÍSICA

ABSTRACT

If we want - as the current didactic discussion requires - to further consolidate the figures of didactic thought from the “Post-Renewal Movement”1 era, which manifest themselves in a didactic, critical-emancipatory concept open to experience, then we need to consider how future Physical Education teachers can be qualified to this end. This is not an easy process, as Physical Education students begin their studies with a concept that is familiar to them, the concept of sport. This sporting concept is characterized by an “enclosure” of content, of methodology, and an institutional “enclosure”. This essay presents a teaching strategy on how future Physical Education teachers can be encouraged to “open themselves” to new ways of thinking as part of their studies. An ethnographic approach is proposed, in which the aim is to learn to question the “familiar”, the “self-evident”. “Strangeness” methods are suitable for this purpose. We present 5 steps that can lead students to learn to distance themselves from the “familiar”, the biographically incorporated sporting concept. We understand that only when this distancing is successful, according to the hypothesis, will students be able to structure didactic ideas from the “Post-Renewal Movement” era, and plan and implement physical education classes open to experience.

Keywords:
Ethnomethodological Approach; Teaching Degree in Physical Education; Habitus; Strangeness

RESUMO

Se quisermos, como exige a atual discussão didática, consolidar ainda mais as figuras do pensamento didático da era do “Pós-Movimento Renovador”1, que se manifestam em um conceito didático aberto à experiência e crítico-emancipatório, então precisamos considerar como os futuros professores de Educação Física podem ser qualificados para isso. Este não é um processo fácil porque os acadêmicos de Educação Física iniciam os seus estudos com um conceito que lhes é familiar, o conceito de esporte. Este conceito esportivo caracteriza-se pelo “fechamento” de conteúdo, de metodologia e um “fechamento” institucional. Este ensaio apresenta uma estratégia didática de como os futuros professores de Educação Física podem ser estimulados a se “abrirem” a novas formas de pensar como parte dos seus estudos. Propõe-se uma abordagem etnográfica em que se pretende aprender a questionar o “familiar”, o “auto evidente”. Métodos de “estranhamento” são adequados para isso. Apresentamos 5 passos que podem levar os acadêmicos a aprenderem a se distanciar do “familiar”, do conceito esportivo biograficamente incorporado. Entendemos que somente quando esse distanciamento for bem-sucedido, segundo a hipótese, os estudantes poderão estruturar ideias didáticas da era do “Pós-Movimento Renovador” e planejar e implementar aulas de educação física abertas à experiência.

Palavras-chave:
Abordagem Etnometodológica; Licenciatura em Educação Física; Habitus; Estranhamento

Introduction

In his book “School Physical Education in Brazil”, Bracht11. Bracht V. A Educação física escolar no Brasil: o que ela vem sendo e o que pode ser. Ijui: Ed. Unijuí; 2019. describes the “Post-Renewal Movement” era as that of pedagogical and didactic rethinking towards critical thinking in the academic discussion on the development of Physical Education pedagogy and didactics. In this description, pedagogical and sociological ways of thinking emerge, but there is no attention to the ethnological method in the discussion about the training of future Physical Education teachers. This caught our attention because Bracht duly mentions the scientific foundations, here especially the sociological and phenomenological foundations, which moved us to contribute to these reflections. In this essay, we seek to fill this gap with a didactic reflection on the concept of “Post-Renewal Movement”. The ethnomethodological approach presented here is characterized by a theoretical critique of the sporting system as a model for school Physical Education or for the training of Physical Education students.

Ethnography was originally a science for the study of the “strange”, whose starting point was the problem of strangeness. On the one hand, this issue reflects the curiosity of ethnographic research about the unknown, but on the other hand, it also reflects a certain skepticism about the possibilities of knowledge acquired from observations in a world to which the researchers themselves do not belong. The understanding to solve this problem used to be: local participation - and as broad as possible. At least since Malinowski’s attempt22. Malinowski BM. Wissenschaft und Religion und andere Schriften. Frankfurt a. M., 1973. to overcome an ethnology that the researcher pursued, mainly only theoretically, that is, without entering directly into the field of research (also referred to by Malinowski as “armchair anthropology”), participatory enculturation into habits, customs, rituals has been a priority, and the life experiences of the researched groups have become the most important strategy in ethnographic research. In principle, little has changed to this day33. Kenway J. Ethnography is not what it used tob e. Rethinking Space, Time, Mobility and Multiplicity. In: Bollig S, Honig MS. Neumann S, Seele C, organizadores. MultiPluriTrans in Educacional Ethnography. Approaching the Multimodality, Pluraty and Transocality of Educational Realities. Bielefeld and New York: Transcript Publishing; 2015. p.37-55..

In the course of the “discovery” of ever-new fields and objects, as well as the development of its methodological forms of knowledge, ethnographic research has distinguished itself considerably as of its beginnings in ethnology and cultural anthropology to the present day, both thematically and paradigmatically. Thus, it seems less and less appropriate to speak “of ethnography”. This differentiation has mainly to do with the fact that, throughout the 20th century, ethnographic epistemological strategies also became more important for the investigation of “native” culture and society. With the increasing reception of ethnomethodological, everyday-sociological and praxeological approaches, the epistemological interest and questioning mode of ethnographic research have changed. The traditional curiosity towards what can be learned about certain social groups and cultural contexts was strongly linked to an interest in the question of how a certain society, group and/or community considered special constitutes itself as such in its reality. Thus, attention shifted from interest in a comprehensive understanding of what was present to the identification and reconstruction of the processes of social production of reality44. Berger P, Luckmann T. A construção social da realidade. Petrópolis: Vozes; 1985..

In this context, it can be summarized that: although ethnography in ethnology originally represented the methodical combination of field research and the description of the “foreigner”, it was later taken up in the social sciences, mainly with a view to a methodological attitude towards the self and that which is supposedly familiar. The strange and its horizon opposing familiarity function today as two sides of a “fundamental difference”. Depending on whether one declares “foreignness” or “familiarity” as a prerequisite or a problem for ethnographic research, it is a question of describing the field from a “native point of view” or of subjecting the perspectives of participation to a “ strategic strangeness”. The well-known “native point of view”55. Geertz U. “From the Native`s Point of View”: On the nature of antropological understanding. Bulletin of American Academy of Arts and Sciences1974;28:26-45. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3822971
https://doi.org/10.2307/3822971...
can be a reference point for attempts at rapprochement, as well as for attempts at distancing.

Within the fundamental difference of “foreignness/familiarity”, the ethnographic field in the social sciences can today be roughly divided into two paradigmatic directions: a direction that is more oriented in the tradition of the Chicago School66. Park RE, Burgess E, McKenzie R.The City. University of Chicago Press, London/Chicago; 2019. towards the reconstruction of lifeworlds and visions of social worlds, subcultures that are presumed to be foreign - for example, the one we see standing out in groups of skateboarders77. Hildebrandt-Stramann R, Hatje M, Palma LE, Oliveira AAB. Considerações Curriculares para a Formação Universitária dos Estudantes de Educação Física. Ijuí: Unijuí; 2022 - and, in another direction, focused on the analysis of familiar, everyday phenomena.

This essay will not deal with the two paradigmatic directions mentioned as a starting point for considerations. Reference is made only to the second direction of ethnographic research. The objective is to show, with the aid of ethnomethodological procedures, how the everyday phenomenon of school physical education classes, familiar to Physical Education students because of their sporting biography, can be analyzed in a way that the social construction of (sports) classes become recognizable to them. Furthermore, the social consequences resulting from the analysis of the construction of (school) reality must become clearly visible to the students and teachers involved in the class. However, the analysis of a physical education class is not sufficient for an enlightening didactic claim. In addition to an analysis of reality based on theoretical foundations, training in university didactics always consists of designing theoretically-based teaching models, if the classes observed and analyzed do not meet the most recent developments arising from educational research in order to promote the self-education skills of students77. Hildebrandt-Stramann R, Hatje M, Palma LE, Oliveira AAB. Considerações Curriculares para a Formação Universitária dos Estudantes de Educação Física. Ijuí: Unijuí; 2022.

For both perspectives, that is, for the analysis of physical education and also for the didactic construction of “new”, “alternative” teaching, it is necessary to address the “familiar” and “strange” aspects that are important for ethnographic research and make them, so to speak, didactically fruitful. In this sense, the first step of this essay is to didactically locate the “familiar” category. The second step is to distance ourselves from what we know, what we consider “familiar”. This is attempted by making the “familiar strange”. Our first hypothesis is that only through “strangeness” do the social structures involved in configuring the teaching reality become conscious. From this, we have the second hypothesis, that only when social structures become conscious is it possible for Physical Education students to plan and implement an alternative social reality, that is, a reality of Physical Education classes guided by pedagogical criteria.

The “familiar” in the training of Physical Education teachers

Research carried out with first-year students at the sports science institutes of the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) and the Technical University of Braunschweig showed that university Physical Education students usually choose the course due to their own journey in sports, commonly because of their attraction towards sports, regardless of said journey being successful or not88. Hildebrandt-Stramann R. Visão pedagogia de movimento. InHildebrandt-Stramann R , editor. Textos pedagógicos sobre o ensino da educação física. Ijui: Ed. Unijuí; 2013. p. 05-116.), (99. Fischer B, Paul A, Bisterfeld M.. Warum entscheiden sich Studierende für ein Lehramtsstudium? Ein Vergleich zwischen Sport- und Mathematikstudierende. Ger. J. Exerc. Sport Res2019;49(1):56-64. DOI: 10.1007/s12662-018-0556-6
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12662-018-0556-...
),(1010. Maraun H. Analysieren und Planen als Handlungsprobleme des Sportlehrers. Schorndorf: Hofmann Verlag: 1981.. Corroborating this statement, we also have the studies by Figueiredo1111. Figueiredo ZCC. Formação docente em Educação Física. experiências sociais e relação com o saber. Movimento 2004;10(1):89-111. DOI: 10.22456/1982-8918.2827
https://doi.org/10.22456/1982-8918.2827...
and Trentin1212. Trentin DT. Experiências de movimento e concepções de Educação Física: algumas implicações possíveis. Motrivivência2007[acesso 15 mar 2024];(28):139-153. Disponível em:Disponível em:https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/motrivivencia/article/view/7654
https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/mot...
. For the majority of Physical Education students, both in Brazil and Germany, the matter related to studying sports is determined: they study “sports”. In the university Physical Education course, “sport” is reproduced. The “familiar” is sport and biographical sporting experiences. Relating that to the writings of Bourdieu1313. Bourdieu P. O Senso Prático. Petrópolis: Editora Vozes: 2009.: the Physical Education student acquired the sporting “habitus”. Bourdieu highlights that habitus represents only one part of a complex web that can only be seen in connection with the social field. The habitus theory and the field theory are intertwined in such a way that only a joint examination, an examination of interconnections and dependencies, makes sense. With the dialectical relationship between habitus and field, Bourdieu describes, on the one hand, the dependence of the formation of habitual structures on the external social structures of the field, which become part of the habitus through mimetic incorporation, and, on the other hand, the effects of habitus on the structures of the social field; structures that form in habitual social practice. Although habitus is largely shaped and influenced by the field, it would be wrong to claim that it is a product of the field, since people’s individual habitual structures react differently to field stimuli. The habitus reacts selectively to field conditions. Ethnography and its field research methods are ideal for investigating the field. In “Le sens pratique”, habitus and field come together.

In this sense, we understand that, for the majority of Physical Education students, the Physical Education experienced before one being admitted to an undergraduate course is an important socialization factor on the path to this sporting habitus. Based on this, we judge it necessary to break the construction structures of this school Physical Education experience. How can the “familiar”, which is generally not subject to discursive disposition, be brought into discussion and thus be made conscious? To answer that, we suggest the following distancing steps:

  • 1st distancing step: The didactic structure of teaching in physical education classes;

  • 2nd distancing step: The content to be transmitted;

  • 3rd distancing step: A “differentiated” didactic structure of teaching;

  • 4th distancing step: We do not see movements, just people moving;

  • 5th distancing step: The sportivization of a non-sporting movement action.

We understand that this organization serves a reflective process that can lead students to familiarize themselves with the strange in a more conscious way, making room for diverse perspectives, meanings and relevance in the world of movement. Again, what are the five steps supposed to do? The process of sportivization of a non-sporting movement, which, by the way, - and this is important -, should occur both in theory and in practice, makes students aware that sport is - as the sociologist Mandelbaum1414. Mandelbaum M. Gesellschaftliche Tatsachen (Social Facts). In Ritsert J. organizador. Gründe und Ursachen gesellschaftlichen Handelns. Frankfurt am Main: Surkamp; 1971. argues - about a social fact. This means that the sport that is represented in sporting movements and in the sporting environment is done by people. In order for sport to have its demands met (Overpowering and Objective Comparability), it must be done by people. The manufacturing process is not arbitrary, but must be based on social rules: spatial rules, timing rules, etc. In this regard, a sporting movement always means a restriction/channeling of human movement. But the distancing process also points in the opposite direction: if sporting movements are movements performed by people, they can also be constructed and then reconstructed by people. This is not an arbitrary process. Ethnological studies on the basketball game of the Navajo Indians in the USA show us this clearly: The culture of the Navajo Indians is characterized by a culture of relationships1414. Mandelbaum M. Gesellschaftliche Tatsachen (Social Facts). In Ritsert J. organizador. Gründe und Ursachen gesellschaftlichen Handelns. Frankfurt am Main: Surkamp; 1971.. The agony of sport is foreign to them. This is why teams, made up mainly of Navajo Indians, lose basketball games. According to their culture, they play the game not as an agonizing basketball game, but as a relational game. The Navajo Indians have not physically internalized what we call “movement to the basket” in the basketball game; this way of acting in the game was not part of their “habitus”. Their culture includes the so-called “informal basketball”1515. Allison M. Uma análise estrutural do basquete Navajo. Dissertação- Universidade de Illinois. Urbano; 1980.. Experiments with students have shown that sports students are hardly able to play basketball in a non-agonizing way, that is, in a relational way. Repeatedly, their goal was to put the ball in the basket or often not even pass the ball to a weaker teammate because there was a risk of losing the ball. Habermas1616. Habermas J. Teoria da Ação Comunicativa. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp; 1981. makes a distinction between two social functional circles: communicative action and instrumental action. The Navajo Indians play basketball according to a dimension of communicative action. Students generally study sports based on the instrumental dimension of the action. With these five distancing steps, it is possible, at least didactically, to understand the communicative dimension of action in theory and practice as an alternative to the instrumental dimension of action.

For the 1 st step towards distancing

During a university seminar on didactics, students receive a video document showing the progress of physical education classes in a first-year elementary school class. The video document was recorded before the seminar. To analyze the teaching, a professor invites the students to take on the role of an extraterrestrial: they come from another planet and attend a social event that the living beings on planet Earth call “Physical Education”. As an alien, it is not possible to understand the language. What do you see? The students describe: A tall person leads many small people into a building (sports hall). There they all sit in the middle of a large area. The big one says something to the little ones. The latter are silent. Suddenly, the little ones jump and run all around the building. The big one raises his hand and makes a loud noise with a small instrument that he blows. The little ones immediately run back to the center of the hall. The big one says something to the little ones, who then run to a wall of the building and immediately return to the middle of the corridor. This scenario is repeated several times until, after about 40 minutes, the big one takes the little ones back to another building.

The “strangeness” viewpoint made it easier for the students to later decipher the didactic structure of the class: There is someone (the big one, identified as the teacher) who gives the little ones (hereinafter identified as students) precise rules about what they should do, that is, when they can start running (time rule), where they should run (space rule) and how they should move (running, jumping, going on all fours, etc.) (movement rule). The students are the recipients of the instructions they must follow. This didactic structure was repeatedly confirmed in new videos of classes with older students. There was just one more thing: the movement rules became increasingly precise. The jump, for example, became the track-and-field long jump; the students learned that we jump into a hole in sand or dirt, that we are not allowed to cross the takeoff mark, that the long jump consists of different phases (running, takeoff, flight, landing), that, as long jumpers, we have a takeoff leg, etc.

In these processes of increasing sporting participation, a social division crystallized within the school class: there were good and bad sporting students. The good sporting students quickly learned the sporting movements and were motivated, while the less skilled students did not learn the sporting movements, or learned them poorly, and became frustrated.

For the 2 nd distancing step

In the didactic discussion of the university seminar, two other questions arose:

1. What is the purpose of learning sporting movements? 2. For example, should the “jumping” topic be approached as a jump in the track-and-field sense in school physical education classes? Answering the question about the meaning of sporting movements leads us to the overarching meaning of sporting activities. The sporting action focuses on two rules: the “overpowering” rule and the “objective comparability” rule. From a sporting perspective, one seeks to surpass the performance of others or their own. In order for the results achieved to be compared with each other, the conditions under which these results are obtained must be standardized. Only if these conditions are the same for everyone involved in a competition can the performances achieved be objectively compared. Based on the conclusions developed in the seminar, the second question was discussed: Do we really have to approach sporting activity in physical education classes in this sporting sense?

Normally, for Physical Education students, this question is simply obsolete due to their sporting biographies. What is familiar and accepted is that the sporting sense is not questioned. It has become fully incorporated into the sporting habitus of Physical Education students. This incorporation is further reinforced by a sports-oriented teaching method. Movement techniques are taught in the sense of a course based on the “from easy to difficult, from simple to complex, from parts to the whole” methodological principle1717. Meinel K, Schnabel G. Motricidade I. Rio De Janeiro: Ao Livro Técnico; 1984.. The theoretical explanation for this procedure is generally based on technocratic theories of learning that stem from a natural scientific view of movement, which, in general, can be understood by students because of their biographical experiences88. Hildebrandt-Stramann R. Visão pedagogia de movimento. InHildebrandt-Stramann R , editor. Textos pedagógicos sobre o ensino da educação física. Ijui: Ed. Unijuí; 2013. p. 05-116.. With these problems as a backdrop, the students were shown another video document displaying the development of a lesson on the “jumping” topic.

For the 3 rd distancing step: A “differentiated” didactic structure of teaching

The students once again had the task of watching a video document about a Physical Education class from the perspective of a person who came from another planet. The observation itself annoyed the students. They saw students creating movement situations independently, using equipment that they then explored in forms of jumps that were different from those of everyday life. They watched children jumping: The children jumped from the floor/from a jumping device onto a pile of wooden boxes, from the boxes downwards, over obstacles; they jumped using a pole, threw a ball into a basket or into a goal while jumping, etc. The big guy (the teacher) went from group to group, encouraged the students in their movement plans, made suggestions for changing the movement situation or participated in one station or another. He mediated a movement class and not a sports class. When the group of students wanted to play football with balls, he intervened. He reminded the students of the movement task they had agreed upon at the beginning of the class. Playing football was not one of them, so he intervened. The students accepted his objection.

What annoyed the students? They observed student and teacher behaviors that were “foreign” to them. The teacher initially did not tell the students what to do, nor did he give instructions or corrections on the movements. The students independently set up their movement situations, changed them and experimented with movement at these stations. In the analysis that followed the observations, the Physical Education students/observers learned about a completely new didactic concept and, therefore, “strange” to them and totally contrasting with the first teaching example. In subsequent classes with reference to theoretical texts, the university students were able to relate the classes observed to the didactic concepts of a “banking conception” and a “problematizing conception”1818. Freire P. Pedagogia do oprimido. Rio de janeiro: Paz e Terra; 1970..

But not only the didactic concept was strange, but the concept of movement was also as well. For this reason, it was logical to problematize the “familiar” understanding of the movement through greater “defamiliarization” in a fourth distancing step.

For the 4 th distancing step: We see no movement, only people moving

When describing what they saw, they consistently responded that they saw children moving around. In doing so, they formulated a principle of phenomenological understanding of movement66. Park RE, Burgess E, McKenzie R.The City. University of Chicago Press, London/Chicago; 2019. that is based on “people moving”, people who seek and test their meanings of movement in a “movement dialogue with the world”88. Hildebrandt-Stramann R. Visão pedagogia de movimento. InHildebrandt-Stramann R , editor. Textos pedagógicos sobre o ensino da educação física. Ijui: Ed. Unijuí; 2013. p. 05-116.),(1919. Trebels A. A concepção dialógica do movimento humano: uma teoria do “se-movimentar”. In: Kunz E, Trebels A, editors. Educação Física crítico-emancipatória. Ijuí: Unijuí; 2010: 23-48.),(2020. Kunz E. Transformação didático-pedagógica do esporte. 9 ed.Ijuí: Unijuí; 1994.. In a systematic classification of what was observed, the Physical education students worked on the different “intentions” that the school students had when jumping in that class: jumping over something, jumping on top of something, jumping from top to bottom, etc. The university students could easily see that, when people jump, they do so with a specific intention: jumping to overcome an obstacle, jumping to get on top of a wall, jumping to fly far, etc. “People move intentionally, so the movement situation determines the intention to move”, writes Gordijn (apud Tamboer)2121. Tamboer J. Sich Bewegen - ein Dialog zwischen Menschen und Welt. Sportpädagogik: 2019; 3(2):14-19..

What was strange and, at the same time, new about this way of seeing movement was the viewpoint change: from the movement form (movement technique) to the people who move. The crucial didactic question was not focused on improving movement technique, but on what the students were doing. Due to their sporting biographical experience, Physical Education students often ask how a movement works. The strange and the new form the question: what the person who jumps have to do, for example, to jump over an obstacle? One answer to this question is that humans must separate themselves from the ground by leaving it. The real goal of every jump is to fly. In order for humans to fly, they need to overcome the Earth’s gravitational pull through momentum. To make this noticeable to the students, they created movement situations - to return to the second video document - in which a strong impulse is needed to jump.

In short: For Physical Education students, this type of movement observation, which is also presented in movement theory as a “functional observation”66. Park RE, Burgess E, McKenzie R.The City. University of Chicago Press, London/Chicago; 2019. of movement, is “strange”. In order for it to become “family”, such distancing measures are absolutely necessary.

For the 5 th distancing step: The sportivization of a non-sporting movement action

Teaching movement sporting activities only makes sense if they are also performed in sports contexts. Sports contexts are part of the sporting biography of Physical Education students. Or, put another way, the sporting biography and, therefore, the sporting habitus of Physical Education students are shaped, among other things, by the sporting contexts they experience. This includes sports rooms and spaces, sports equipment, people, and sports activities. The sociology of sport also speaks of codified rules of space (space rule), inventory (inventory rule), time (time rule) and movement actions (action rule)88. Hildebrandt-Stramann R. Visão pedagogia de movimento. InHildebrandt-Stramann R , editor. Textos pedagógicos sobre o ensino da educação física. Ijui: Ed. Unijuí; 2013. p. 05-116.. Example: Basketball is played on a specific basketball court with specific dimensions (space rule), with a specific ball, the basketball (inventory rule); it is played in two basketball hoops (inventory rule), there are four game halves of 20 minutes each (time rule), the ball must be bounced while the player runs (action rules), etc. With the help of these codified sporting rules, sporting movements are standardized and only make sense if the movement actions follow the determined directions, that is, of overpowering and objective comparability.

If, among other things, the objective of a modern and, therefore, critical training of Physical Education students is to “unfreeze” the meaning of sport that is solidified in the habitus of Physical Education students, then one must try to enlighten the consciousness of students about these established “secret” rules. Goffman’s “defamiliarization” method2222. Goffman E. The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday; 1959. is again suitable for this.

To this end, students are given the task of converting a non-sporting movement into a sporting movement. To solve this problem, they must think about “regulating” this movement. The purpose of this distancing step is for students to recognize the restrictions on the comparative meaning of movement that occur through sportivization and, at the same time, to notice, through a comparison between “sport and recreational tree climbing”, the limitations of versatile tree climbing due to sport. They must realize that the actions of human movement are determined by multiple dimensions of meaning that are lost when focusing on the comparative meaning (the social, symbolic and sensitive meaning)2323. Hildebrandt-Stramann R , Funke-Wieneke J. Uma Pedagogia de Movimento orientada no Desenvolvimento Humano como Base na Formação do Professor da Educação Física. In: Hildebrandt-Stramann R , Taffarel CNZ, editors. Currículo e Educação Física. Formação de Professores e Práticas pedagógicas nas escolas. Ijuí: Editora Unijui; 2007. p.59-66.. The specific task could be: Transform the non-sporting movement of climbing a tree into a sporting movement. The students must: set a starting point (space rule); set a target point (space rule); set a timing rule (time from start to finish is measured - time rule); set an action rule (one hand and one foot must always be in contact with the tree); determine that all participants in this climbing competition must climb the same tree (inventory rule); determine that the tree must be in the same condition for all participants, that is, it must be dry for all participants (inventory rule - if it rains, the conditions of the tree change and, therefore, the competition cannot be held or must be interrupted until standard conditions return).

Through this 5th distancing step, the “familiarized” becomes “strange”. “Sportiness” not only clarifies the limitation of human movement to the comparative meaning of movement, but also the limitation of the area of physical education, restricting it to the application of standardized actions. Physical education should aim to reflect on and transmit a variety of perspectives as to the meaning of the world of movement. The future Physical Education teacher must be qualified to possess such teaching skills during their academic training. This is only possible if they learn to distance themselves from their sporting experiences in order to broaden their horizons of experience.

Conclusion

The “familiar” and the “strange” are - and it should be clear - two ethnographic terms that can be used didactically in the training of future Physical Education teachers. They can substantially contribute to students being able to have a different and enriching didactic vision of the world of movement. The familiar often leads to a certain blockage of social developments or, in schools, to the processes of supporting students’ individual development. To make people see, it is often necessary to break with familiar perspectives and propose “strangeness processes”. In the training of Physical Education teachers, the “familiar” can be found in the sporting biography of most students. The students, for example, transformed the “jumping” topic into “track-and-field jumping”. By interpreting the “jumping” theme as “track-and-field jumping”, they inevitably adopt the sporting sense of the theme: overpowering and objective comparability. This is familiar, and most Physical Education students are familiar with it. To question what is familiar, one must learn to distance oneself from these biographical experiences. We must learn to allow ourselves to look at things from other perspectives.

We presented five distancing steps whose common point was defamiliarization from the familiar. Strangeness consisted of a methodological trick by Goffman2222. Goffman E. The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday; 1959.: seeing human behavior as a staged act. Observation takes place from the point of view of an alien. Through this strangeness, according to Goffman, a seemingly evident action can be sociologically broken. We can see how this is done, what signs and tricks they use to present a different scene of the social reality of “Physical Education”, that is, in the presentation of a contrast, the limitations of the experience itself become clear; at best, it leads to an expansion of the horizon of imagination and, therefore, also to an expansion of didactic knowledge.

Ultimately, and this is the true objective of this ethnographic approach, it is about the professionalization of teacher training66. Park RE, Burgess E, McKenzie R.The City. University of Chicago Press, London/Chicago; 2019.. Furthermore, it must be clear that this didactic approach in the academic seminar as part of the training of Physical Education students is also linked to a research perspective. Ethnographic research thrives on the study of “the field.” The research method is observation (participant). However, before entering the “field” with the students - in this case, the school -, it seems to make sense, from a university didactic perspective, to bring the field into the university by means of video documents and learn to observe, in a protected space that allows reflections and practices of breaking with the familiar. We can say that it is a process of acclimatization to the strange, to the new. Uncertainties take the place of certainties, and this causes insecurity and instability, a fact that needs to be well discussed and organized by professors. Only then can one leave the university environment and move into the “open” field of “school classes” or “school”.

Finally, we understand that a fifth distancing step is important as an exercise to becoming aware of the possibilities of interpreting and performing a movement, without it being limited to the sporting world and its delimitations. It should be noted, however, that we are not opposed to the teaching and experience of the sporting world, but we are critical of its exclusivity in school teaching. School Physical Education is a privileged moment in which students can learn to assign meaning to their movements by interpreting and creating them according to their intentions and purposes, without being limited to rules and standards established by the sporting world. It is the Physical Education teacher’s duty to work on pedagogical arrangements that enable students to overcome biographical processes of movement crystallized by the standards of the sporting world.

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Edited by

Editor: Carlos Herold Junior

Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    29 Apr 2024
  • Date of issue
    2024

History

  • Received
    28 Feb 2024
  • Reviewed
    16 Mar 2024
  • Accepted
    17 Mar 2024
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