1 Making a Difference ? Education and ‘ Ability ’ in Physical Education

Making a Difference? Education and Ability' in Physical Education. This paper brings a speculative, sociological perspective to the nature of 'ability' in Physical Education (PE) and asks why this aspect of embodiment, with notable exceptions, has received so little critical attention in the professional discourse of PE and associated research in recent years. It is suggested that thinking about 'ability' has become a taken for granted absent presence in the discursive practices of PE in the UK, yet it variously helps configure attitudes towards the body, a sense of status, value, distinction, inclusion/exclusion and embodied self. Drawing on ideas from the theoretical work of Bernstein and Bourdieu the paper raises a number of issues about the ways in which 'ability' is constructed within the disciplines that feed the various sub-cultures of the PE profession, influencing teaching in schools and teacher education. The paper suggests that unless greater attention is given to 'physical education' rather than the interests of sport and health, the profession is unlikely to make an impact either on the 'abilities' or other cultural differences that children and young people bring to schools. Introduction In this discussion I take up a theme articulated but left rather underdeveloped in a recent venture with Brian Davies and Jan Wright (2003) Body Knowledge and Control. Studies in the Sociology of Physical Education and Health. In that text we were concerned primarily to explore how consciousness is embodied through the practices and rituals of Physical Education and Health (PEH) in schools. However, we were equally eager to emphasise that, if we are interested in improving the lot of more children in schools in the interest of social democratic ideals, then we needed to be as concerned with issues of 'ability'-how it is recognised, conceptualised, socially configured, nurtured and embodied in and through the practices of PE – as with those of sport and health. We begin then, by asking whether in the current political culture we are moving any closer or further away from engaging these ideals.