Kenneth Atkins

Publication Date

6-1977

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

John Jones, Norman Deeb, J. Krenzin, Bill Meadors

Comments

Original department was Physical Education.

Degree Program

Department of Kinesiology, Recreation and Sport

Degree Type

Master of Arts

Abstract

The Journal of Health, Physical Education and Recreation was subjected to a content analysis for the period 1963-1973 using subject philosophy, pedagogical style, and contributors as the content indicators. The study examines how curriculum change and subject content reflect change and ideology in the wider society. Justifications for teaching physical education have shifted from a traditional emphasis on fitness and character training to education for leisure and lifetime sports and the desirability of self-actualization via movement education. The study argues that those changes parallel a move in the requirements of the social and economic structure, from mass wage labor to a highly differentiated work force, and the utilization of leisure as a means of social control in a period of change in work structure and patterns. Theoretically, it suggests that subjects within the curriculum delimit and frame the notions available to individuals and groups. Thus, it attempts to show how structural relationships are reproduced in the consciousness of individuals, by arguing the curriculum content limits consciousness development as well as transmitting specific forms of ideology; furthermore, subject maintenance is achieved by the sanctioning of dominant ideology via the process of curriculum change, in terms of subject philosophy and pedagogical style.

Disciplines

Kinesiology | Leisure Studies | Life Sciences | Social and Behavioral Sciences | Sports Studies

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