Inclusion and democratic values in physical education

Abstract

The practical and physical part of Physical Education (PE) makes it perfect for promoting skills and attitudes as respect, solidarity, inclusion and cooperation. In PE it is impossible to sit in the back of the classroom and say: I´m soo tolerant! You have to participate and show yourself. When the games are made to promote cooperation and inclusion, it will help the players to get involved and to involve others. However, when scoring and winning are the main concerns of the players this may flout democracy and Human Rights’ values such as solidarity, respect, inclusion and cooperation. This study aims at developing games that can counter-balance egocentric drifts and initiate the players to inclusive and cooperative playing. Method: The study are conducted with PE teacher students in their 4th year. The players are introduced to the principles of rebound-games. Aimed at finding out whether they would act more inclusive when they play rebound-games than ordinary games. The framework of the study was: 4 matches played for the same amount of time, the players and teams stayed the same through all matches to make the constellations as consistent as possible. Rebound-ballgames are plays that require at least the cooperation of two players to score. Involvements and passes were counted as a measure relevant to inclusion. Results: Even though the games were short they still show differences in the involvement and passing patterns. For the last games the total amount of passes are notably higher.