Using Critical Social Theory as Professional Learning to Develop Scholar—Practitioners in Physical Education: The Example of Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, this article is a well thought through conceptual piece. The authors link the various sections well, and make their points well.

IF the authors wanted to explore and link to more literature, they could consider some of the work by philosophers of PE like Scott Kretchmar, who extensively discuss such epistemological issues as knowledge/practice in PE. In my view this would be a bonus, and would provide a bridge to another, but related, audience with similar concerns and interests. (In the US, those of us who teach sport sociology/physical cultural studies are also often teach philosophy of PE as the only humanists in a department). 

Reading the conclusion, I did hope for more engagement with the concept of "third space" the authors had teased at the beginning. My feeling is that this section could be strengthened by adding hypothetical examples or further discussion. Or the concept could be cut from the article altogether. 

Author Response

Review Comment 1:

Thank you for this point which we have responded to as follows. We have added a reference to Kretchmar (2018) on page 3 with the following comment that is intended as an invitation to readers form other disciplines to engaged with this paper on its terms but also bring in their their own they too: 

p. 3
We would add, that we fully acknowledge it is not just the preserve of the critical social sciences to open up such avenues of critical questioning and expanded awareness of what PE is and might be. Indeed and of course, philosophy and history are also particularly well placed to provide such a theoretical platform for the scholar-practitioner. In fact, on this aspect we agree with the philosopher Kretchmar [2018] who suggests “ historians, sociologists, and philosophers need to work together and learn from one another,” and furthermore, like Kretchmar, we would “add anthropologists, biologists, geneticists, and others to the list.” Therefore, while we proceed with our argument from a critical sociological perspective, and argue for its usefulness, we would encourage readers from other disciplines to consider how their theory can be used to perform this pragmatic scholarly function for the scholar practitioner also.

Again in our conclusions we re-affirm the caveat: 
p. 13
We would like to also reaffirm one of opening caveats that the critical scholar practitioner may be aligned with a range of disciplines other than sociology, so the theoretical input might just as reasonably come from philosophy, history, anthropology and for that matter any other disciplines offering critical vista onto the practice. 

Review Comment 2:

Thank you for your comments on third space - we agree this was in need of a little more inclusion and integration than we had given it.  On reflection we have moved the concluding paragraph on third space to the introduction to better set up the term for the paper. We then merely called for further research on the idea in our conclusions. 

Conducting this analysis, we also draw on the term Third Space. Bhabha [64] (p.312) conceptualises Third Space as a cultural space, a third, in-between, sometimes liminal space, arguing, “the non- synchronous temporality of global and national cultures opens up a cultural space – a third space – where the negotiation of incommensurable differences creates a tension peculiar to borderline existences.” Many scholars have taken this idea and applied it to cultural phenomenon that appears to have the qualities Bhabha highlights but occur beyond the original national, colonial, and global cultural focus. For example, drawing on Bhabha [14] and Soja’s [15] ideas, Whitchurch [16] contends, sectors of the economy, with one of these being higher education, are becoming third space higher education working environments.

These spaces are characterised as having activity creep in which multiple roles and areas of focus are becoming blended, hybridized and to an extent increasingly personalised. Its professionals are becoming what Whitchurch [16] terms third space professionals. Professionals are third space because of their intermingling of academic and applied work and the uprating of forms of capital associated with this blending. As Streitwieser and Ogden [17] highlight, higher education based “Third-space professionals are increasingly required to have scholarly credentials, conduct research and evaluation, and even engage in various forms of teaching and service.” However, to the best of our knowledge, this idea has yet to be considered in the field of PE and less so generally in the scholastic as opposed to higher education environment. 
In our conclusions, we call for the use of critical social science theory in the professional learning of PE teachers to enhance their scholar-practitioner understandings. We also we call for the reinvigoration of investigation into the PE scholar-practitioner to understand the evolution of what we refer to as the emerging third space - hybrid field of PE.

and then added a short analytical  comment at the end of each section as follows;

On p. 7
Before we do this, it is worth highlighting here that with the increasing recognition of third space theory within scholastic and academic contexts (see for example [39], [40], [41] the scholar-practitioner is inhabiting a field which is itself becoming more permeable at its boundaries. Zeichner [42] (p.92) refers to this emergent third space as a hybrid space, further commenting that working in such a hybrid third space;
involve[s] a rejection of binaries such as practitioner and academic knowledge and theory and practice, and involve[s] the integration of what are often seen as competing discourses in new ways—an either/or perspective is transformed into a both/ also point of view. 
In this way, the space between higher education sports and teacher education departments, school PE departments and also the sports and leisure industries is evolving the field of PE itself to the extent that we might begin to consider the notion of field of PE as becoming what Pedrini, Brown and Aimini [43] have referred to (in the context of sports coaching) as a hybrid field involving evolving forms of practice, habitus, dispositions and capital. 

On p. 13
Lastly, Bourdieu’s forms of capitals might be complimented with other conceptions of social value such as Putnam’s [47] notions of bridging and bonding social capital to develop a progressive analysis of the potential capitals that could emerge in this third space - hybrid field of PE for physical educators and students alike.

On. p. 16
Lastly, as with our previous sections it is worth highlight the interaction between an analysis of habitus in the field of PE, the emergence of a third space-hybrid field of PE and the implications of what kind of habitus might emerge from such a hybrid field. Following Bourdieu’s idea of hysteresis of habitus which Tomlinson [REF] succinctly defines as “delays in the realignment of habitus and field that result from change at the field level” we may begin to appreciate the level of challenge and opportunity that new knowledge and practice ushered in by structural change in the field might bring for individuals at the level of habitus.

On p. 17 conclusions...

in this paper, we have highlighted a few instances where we feel there is a case to be made that PE in schools is also becoming a third space-hybrid field environment and as such so are its teachers increasingly may be viewed as third space professionals. We consider this aspect warrants further conceptual analysis and empirical research specific to the PE field, especially given the potential of examining third space ideas alongside similar notions such as Merleau-Ponty’s interspaces already used by Bourdieu, and Victor Turner’s concept of liminality [78]. Notwithstanding this need, it seems reasonable to suggest…

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I think that the authors in the abstract should announce the type of study, the type of article. If it is a research article, reflection, review, essay,

The author should indicate the type of study. If you are studying a single case and announce it in the summary and introduction

I ask the authors to review this work, it may be of interest to you

Gil, P. (2013). La satisfacción corporal y su rol en las relaciones sociales. Universitas Psychologica, 12(2), 547-558

The authors present the contents of the study well structured and encourage the reader to immerse themselves in the text. The text encourages the reader to read it and conclude the article.

2. Author positioning: Practitioners and Scholars of PE Background

3. Scholar-practitioners must know their field: Unpacking the illusio of the field of PE 2

4. PE Scholar-practitioners must know their “worth” in relation to the field: The forms of capital in PE teaching

 

5. Temet Nosce: PE scholar-practitioners must get to know themselves (their PE teach-ing habitus)

Author Response

Review Comment 1:

Thank you for pointing this out. We have added the term conceptual paper in the abstract introduction and conclusion to make this clear for the reader.)
The author should indicate the type of study. If you are studying a single case and announce it in the summary and introduction (I think this point is now covered by the above use of the term conceptual).

Review Comment 2: (on Gil Madrona’s empirical work)

I ask the authors to review this work, it may be of interest to you
Gil Madrona, P. (2013). La satisfacción corporal y su rol en las relaciones sociales. Universitas Psychologica, 12(2), 547-558. 

Thank you for this suggestion -our Spanish reading is not bi-lingual but we did manage to understand enough to appreciate the usefulness of this paper and we have made reference to the study in or text on revisions made on page 14 of the revised manuscript. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf