Perceived Barriers to Maintaining a Safe Physical Education Climate

Background/Purpose: Physical education is a context in which students should be developing motor competence, knowledge and skills pertaining to health-related fitness, and positive attitudes about physical activity (NASPE, 2004). Physical education, however, is often perceived as a hostile and threatening environment in which peer harassment is tolerated and facilitated by physical education teachers (Ennis et al., 1997; Tischler & McCaughtry, 2011). The purpose of this investigation was to use a social-ecological framework (Espelage & Swearer, 2004) to discover the perceptions of physical educators regarding bullying in their classes and the barriers that prevent them from effectively reducing peer harassment.

Method: Four physical education teachers from one Midwestern middle school consented to participate in the IRB approved study. Participants were observed during 20 class periods and formally interviewed on two occasions for 30-50 minutes. Interview questions focused on participants’ perceptions of bullying within physical education and the overall class climate.

Analysis/Results: Field notes from observations and interview transcriptions were analyzed using open and axial coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Prolonged engagement, triangulation, and member checks were also utilized. Results indicate that teacher choices pertaining to class management and curricular selections contributed to an environment ripe for bullying. Physical educators also perceived that parental socioeconomic status and influence, the nature of physical education, students’ fear of reporting bullying, and student bystanders all hindered their ability to handle peer harassment in their classes.

Conclusions: While participants reported that many barriers prevented them from adequately maintaining a safe educational setting, observational data indicated that the physical educators were also complicit in creating a hostile class climate by ignoring obvious episodes of bullying and selecting curriculum content that facilitated the emergence of bullying. If physical education teachers desire to foster an atmosphere in which physical activity is an enjoyable and safe pursuit for all students, they must scrutinize closely how decisions related to curriculum and class management may actually promote bullying and aggression among students.