What can Freire bring to a hybrid approach of Teaching Games for Understanding and Sport Education? Exploring a social justice perspective

Abstract

Introduction While there is a growing body of research on hybrid approaches in Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, there remains a gap in studies examining these combinations through a social justice lens, which could provide deeper insights into the power relations and possibilities for social change.Aim This paper explores an action research project where a teacher educator and pre-service teachers (PSTs) reflected on the implementation of a hybrid approach of Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) and Sport Education (SE). Specifically, this paper examines the experiences in this hybrid approach by using a Freirean lens (Freire Citation2005).Settings and participants The research took place in a university-community sport partnership project in Brazil. Participants included a teacher educator, five PSTs and 14 children between seven and 11 years old.Data collection Multiple data sources were collected through this action research project including teacher educator’s field notes, PSTs’ field notes after each teaching episode, teacher educator and PSTs’ meetings, PSTs generated artefacts (e.g. lesson plans, videos, photos and schedule of the games).Findings Three themes were co-created in analysing the hybrid approach with a Freirean lens. The first theme explores power relations and their influences on learning opportunities in the hybrid approach. The second theme highlights unsuccessful pedagogical strategies employed to negotiate power relations. The third theme examines the challenges in recognising historical patterns of gender-based oppression.Implications Applying a Freirean lens to a hybrid approach of TGfU and SE reveals insights into how power relations shape sport experiences and the inability to negotiate them without a critical lens. This study demonstrates that power relations can hinder participants from reaching their full human potential (Freire Citation2005) by limiting their agency and voice within the learning environment. Moreover, these dynamics often hinder the effective implementation of student-centred pedagogies, reinforcing traditional hierarchies in what we term an ‘oppressive-centred approach’. Integrating a social justice perspective can help shift the hybrid models towards ones that not only enhances social inclusion but also actively engages learners in social transformation.

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