deportigualízate: enacting critical intersectional feminist pedagogy in Spanish PESTE

Abstract

Background: Physical education is seen as a subject that can both entrench but also challenge inequities. Within Spain, there is legislation requiring educators to teach about gender equity in schools across all subjects. Given this, topics around gender (and equity more broadly) are being taught in some Spanish Physical Education-Sport Tertiary Education (PESTE) programmes. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore university students’ experiences of engaging with a critical intersectional feminist pedagogy unit in a Spanish PESTE programme. Methods: This paper represents one participatory action research study that is part of a larger research project exploring equity in physical education. The authors use qualitative data generation methods (including interviews, evaluations, field notes, and others) as well as data analysis (narrative analysis, descriptive coding, concept coding) to develop the findings. Findings: The findings examine two teaching moments from the unit that students resonated with the most. In so doing, the authors examine the specific factors that the students discussed the most as affecting the way they think about equity in health, physical activity, and education. Conclusions: The authors conclude by arguing that critical approaches to physical education that draw on embodied pedagogies and emplaced criticality have the ability to make ripples of change that can help raise issues of equity amongst future physical education professionals.