Background/Purpose Sport education (SE) has received considerable support from teachers, teacher educators, and the sport pedagogy literature as a cure for much that ails physical education. The purpose of the study described in this paper was to determine the extent to which teachers employing the SE model rejected and combatted or supported and reinforced masculine bias and sexism.
Method Participants were one male and one female preservice teacher (PT). Data collection and analysis were driven by Connell's Theory of Hegemonic Masculinity (HM). Data were collected using a series of qualitative techniques (extensive field-note collection, stimulated recall, formal and informal interviews, and document analysis) as the PTs taught four SE seasons to middle school pupils.
Analysis/Results Data were analyzed by employing analytic induction and constant comparison. Data trustworthiness and credibility were established by triangulation of findings, member checking, and the search for discrepant and negative cases. Results revealed that HM was supported and reinforced and masculine bias and sexism were prevalent within the SE seasons. The four major themes were: male dominance, female conformity, racial differences, and PTs' perceptions and behaviors.
Conclusions The findings suggest that merely adhering to the curricular scaffolding of the SE model provides no more insulation against inequality than working within more traditional curricular frameworks. It was hypothesized that the support and reinforcement of HM were due to the PTs' orientations to teaching/coaching, interpretation of SE, and inexperience.