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Description
In the last two decades the recent research has indicated the need to analyze students in order to create PE curricula that are accepted and considered important by the interested parties themselves. So far in Poland, the voice of students regarding the PE curriculum has been marginalized, therefore, the aim of the study was to explore the meanings that students give to PE and physical activity in general.
Using 18 focus group interviews and 4 individual in-depth interviews, 60 first year students of a comprehensive school (33 girls and 27 boys, aged 15) were examined. The research was conducted in 2022.
The results showed that for students PE is an irrelevant subject and occupies a low place in the school hierarchy of subjects. Most of the respondents perceived PE as a break from other, more important subjects which they will take their final exams in. Moreover, PE does not affect the way the respondents feel about their body. Such an opinion about PE was strengthened by parents of the respondents, who in the students' opinion are not interested in what is happening at PE, as opposed to the interest they have in other school subjects and often are excusing students from participating in PE classes. Thus, the research indicates a further need to analyze the discourses about physical activity and PE used by the parents of students. The inferior position of PE in the respondents' opinions will also be discussed in relation to the deepening crisis in Polish education.
