How the gendered body is constructed in the neoliberal schooling context through discipline and healthism in contemporary physical education

This chapter examines the use of sport and competition in the physical education context, with insights shared into the corporeal effects of this, particularly in terms of gender. The analysis illuminates how contemporary physical education discourses and regimes of practice have come to be as they are today. A genealogical approach is adopted, and the content is framed by two research questions. The first focuses on what forms of governing have historically regulated bodies in physical education in England from the end of the twentieth century to today, and the second considers what the effects of these forms of governing have been on the construction of (gendered) bodies. To explore the rationalities and discourses through which different forms of governing have been constituted in physical education, time-bound physical education documents and associated policies, reports and Acts are analysed. The predominance of healthism as a rationality of governing physical education emerges, and physical activity/sport are exposed as core governmental and discipline technologies. In this manner, they are revealed as technologies to support the neoliberal state’s need for regulated, healthy workers to improve economic performance and productivity.