Students' Gendered Learning in Physical Education: A Didactic Study of a French Multi-Ethnic Middle School in an Underprivileged Area

Résumé En

This chapter is about how gender order is enacted in a multi-ethnic coeducational physical education class located in an area of low socioeconomic status. Using the joint action conceptual framework of the French didactique tradition, it explores the schooling experiences of girls and boys in a multi-ethnic middle school. Through three nested timescales of didactical analysis, it scrutinizes how gendered learning emerges as a by-product of classroom interactions. The findings point out that gendered learning among girls and boys goes through a complex process in which participants' epistemic gender positioning intersects with their cultural/ethnic backgrounds through micro-social interactions related to particular curricular contents within a particular context. The analysis reveals that not all girls are dominated when playing games, and not all boys reinforce hegemonic masculinity in the class. Each student occupies a specific niche in relation with the meaning she/he gives to the teacher's expectations and how she/he negotiates the meaning of her/his practice within the 2 peer group. Finally, some implications are pointed out in terms of feminist emancipatory pedagogies for schools located in underprivileged areas.