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For the discussion of the political representativeness of PE and the understanding of the place of PE within society to be realistic, Whitson & Macintosh (1990) argue that “it is necessary that physical education include exposure to ways of thinking that do not take the value of high performance sport for granted and to languages that construct other versions of human purposes.” They go further to stress the importance of having university PE courses and research “reconstruct a place for the humanities and for scholarship that is cognizant of questions that simply are not raised when improvements in performance are celebrated uncritically. If the purpose of the university is not only to train experts in a technical sense but to prepare them to play leadership roles in society, it is crucial that students are encouraged to think about the limits of their own knowledge structures” (pp. 48-49).
Concluding RemarksIn the 1980’s, several western scholars drew attention to the paradigm debate that was taking place in the discipline of PE and education. Some twenty years on, the existence of academic research utilizing a wide range of paradigmatic approaches to PE phenomena points to an apparent upsurge in interest and a healthy acceptance of other paradigmatic perspectives for conducting research in the field of PE. A close examination of the state of research in Japanese PE, however, reveals a situation, which, arguably implies inferior esteem and status to alternative modes of inquiry in relation to the positivistic one. The development of alternative research in PE in Japan encounters a series of obstacles. Yet the most deeply encrusted belief is undoubtedly the one contended by Guba (1981): “One of the major difficulties in proposing a new paradigm is that the old is so entrenched-it is no longer a way to do inquiry but the way.” Regarding the path that sociology of PE and sport should take, Horne (1994) contends that “there has to be a degree of contingency and openness about the way we, as sociologists, see the world. We have to be prepared to be surprised by research findings, and not theoretically closed - an impossibility if one adopts a knowing, cynical, ironical, postmodern approach.”
The debate embraced in this investigative work is significant in terms of disturbing the silence that has prevailed within the discipline of PE in Japan regarding educational and sociopolitical implications derived from and influenced by the methodological orientation of scholarly inquiry. Further investigation on the paradigmatic orientation of research is necessary in order to assess whether qualitative approaches are indeed nearly nonexistent in scholarly inquiry in Japanese PE. Reasons for such an imbalance in paradigmatic orientation may have to do with matters of internal struggle between researchers with different paradigmatic orientations -- resulting in a contest of power among them, with the weakest side losing access to academic highlight; or might be due to a lack of critical thinking in researching the discipline of PE; or even due to a cultural attribute of Japanese society; or a characteristic of the conservative approach to PE, as asserted by Kageyama (1995).
Regarding the paradigmatic orientation of research in PE in Japan, Cavalli & Fujiwara (2001) have commented that the research community does not seem to be catching up with up-to-date research theories as it is indicated by the little attention paid to other modes of inquiry. Considering that positivism is the dominant paradigmatic perspective for scholarly inquiry in Japanese PE, the exposition of the limitations and inadequacies of the positivist mode of inquiry is absolutely not to demerit the paradigm or those involved in research using positivist approaches, but rather to attempt to construe a line of thinking that relates the overall approach to research in PE in Japan to that of the sociocultural world. There is a pressing need for the Japanese research community to contemplate the problem of the limitations and inadequacies of a positivist approach. Simultaneously, it is necessary for the discipline to attempt to associate these inadequacies and limitations to the societal pattern being observed by Japanese society regarding PE, sport, and education as a whole. Accordingly, it is a chief point to attempt to establish debate on the cons of this unilateral approach to research in PE. I do not consider imperative any longer to assert the pros of such approach since I consider them already taken-for-granted and accepted by the research community at large. The apparent inexistence of interpretive and critical research confirms such affirmation. This imbalance in paradigmatic orientation has institutionalized the positivist paradigm as the guarantor of truth. I assume, if positivist instances are not contested and new approaches are not sought, that the acceptance and dominance of the prevailing methodology is guaranteed. Therefore, the Japanese research community have need of working on the opposite side of the tracks and debate on the institutionalization and reinforcement of values, practices and assumptions for perceiving the world. Moreover, researchers must give full attention to the implications of having these same values, practices and assumptions transferred into the societal model (See Cavalli (in press) for an extensive record of social, educational and scientific limitations of a paradigmatic imbalance on research in Japanese PE).
Furthermore, as I have indicated throughout this investigation, I consider it mandatory for PE to provide people with the skills necessary to improve the usage of the genetically inherited senses; to develop people’s conceptual tools to enable them to interact with and properly read the world; and, as a consequence of this living equation, to contribute to the formation of people’s sound and vigorous experience. I have also furnished evidence that demonstrate how the production of knowledge in PE and the blind acceptance of scientistically-proven postulates produce effects and work as one of the main political agencies responsible for providing people with skills and tools to build their experience. I have confirmed the widespread belief that ‘what we teach/research’ and ‘how we approach teaching/researching’ are value-laden statements; consequently, they are political statements. I have manifested agreement to Eisner’s (1988) premise that the politics of method shape people’s minds. I have reiterated that paradigmatic/methodological choices for approaching teaching and researching PE make a difference in determining the body of knowledge as well as in dictating the norms for social appraisal.
My argument here, as I have argued elsewhere (Cavalli & Fujiwara, 2001), “is not that the quantitative paradigm is obsolete, but that supplementary research guided by alternative paradigms should also be given a chance to enhance the overall body of knowledge of the discipline of PE” in Japan which could, in turn, provide people with alternative values, practices and assumptions for approaching reality and for constructing knowledge and practical wisdom to form their experience.
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