Dastan Rashid, Timmy Nilsson & Mikael Londos
Department of Sport Sciences, Malmö Unversity
The purpose of this study is to describe and problematize pupils’ and teachers’ experiences of an ongoing school project about values education in relation to teaching. The school project is designed so that pupils in grades 4–6, aged 11–13, can plan, lead and carry out physical activities with the elderly in a nursing home. National and international research on values education has been used to study the school project. The study has three questions, how pupils and teachers view their participation in the school project; how pupils and teachers perceive the school project; and how the school project changes the school. Qualitative methods have been used in the form of semi-structured interviews and focus group interviews. The collected empirical data have been qualitatively analyzed and discussed with the support of Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, with a special focus on the concepts of habitus, field and capital, in order to understand the values and action of teachers and pupils. The results show that both pupils and teachers initially had more of a wait-and-see attitude to the school project, but after three years they are positive about the work done in values education. The pupil’s experience of the school project is that it contributes to an understanding of the elderly and their fellow human beings, and that the encounter with them has been de-dramatized. The school project has also contributed to the pupils becoming more active in and out of school, reaching a social maturity and gaining a lifelong perspective on physical activity. The conclusions of the study may possibly be applicable in other contexts based on what has emerged at the examined school.
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DASTAN RASHID is a physical education teacher in the city of Malmö. He is also a mentor at Malmö University for students with disabilities.
TIMMY NILSSON is a physical education teacher at the Varagård School in the Municipality of Bjuv.
MIKAEL LONDOS is a Senior Lecturer in sport science, specializing in physical education and sports pedagogy.
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