Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the factors affecting the implementation of the PE curriculum in boys’ middle school in Kuwait. The study arose from a review of current practice in the teaching of PE in these schools, indicating that there were issues concerning the curriculum being offered to pupils. The implementation of the PE curriculum can be affected by a number of factors which vary according to the social, economic, political and cultural context. The literature suggested that in Kuwait the three main factors were the teachers’ commitment and contribution to the lessons, school factors and non-school factors. To investigate this phenomenon in Kuwait two complementary research tools were used within the framework of the model developed from existing work by Stillwell & Willgoose (1997). A questionnaire was administered to forty-one PE teachers and in-depth interviews were conducted with seven of these teachers selected from the five school governorates. In-depth interviews were also held with six PE inspectors and four school principals selected from schools in these governorates. Some of the interview questions were derived from the quantitative analysis of the questionnaire. The findings of this study indicated that there are numerous factors contributing to the problems associated with the implementation of the PE curriculum, with three major factors emerging that are significant in Kuwaiti schools, namely: (1) Teachers’ commitment and contribution to the implementation of the PE curriculum, (2) School factors, such as budget, time allocated to the PE lessons, facilities and the PE curriculum, and (3) Non-school factors, such as the social and cultural aspects of Kuwait society. The study concluded that unless the above factors are addressed, very little improvement would take place in the implementation of the PE curriculum. Therefore, it recommends that further investigation should be conducted into the micro level of the problems highlighted in this study, i. e. the social and cultural aspects of Kuwait society, in order to gain a deeper understanding of the environment in which these problems reside.