Abstract
This thesis presents a sociological analysis, of the teaching of boys' physical education and is based on a three-year research link with five teachers in two secondary schools. In the thesis, this link is characterised as ethnographic and the implications of the link for both the process and product of research are considered. The thesis is divided into a Preface and four Parts. In the Preface, guiding perspectives are discussed and consideration is given to how a sociologically-informed analysis of teaching requires sensitivity to both the immediacy of teaching itself and to the locatedness of such activity within structural relationships. Insights to be gained from interpretive sociology, neo-Marxism and cultural studies are discussed. Chapter One discusses the links between private troubles and public issues. Research questions are discussed. It is noted that a central concern is how teachers construct contexts within which teaching and learning become more or less possible. Chapters Two, Three, Four and Five provide detailed empirical research material in advance of a literature re-view in Chapter Six. This arrangement of the text is intended to enable a discussion of the role of the researcher and teachers in educational research. Chapter Seven discusses developments in literary theory and emerging debates in anthropology about the process of writing. Chapter Eight draws together themes from the thesis in an attempt to look at the personal significance of the research and the wider implications for the teaching of physical education.