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    Hereunder are some examples of the limitations caused by a unilateral methodological/paradigmatic approach to teaching and researching PE in Japan.

• Educational, school and social contexts or problems are not reflected in the research of PE;

• We can reason, therefore, that research in PE does not represent the society PE is supposed to represent, nor does PE effectively carry out its pedagogical mission;

• Paradigmatic orientation for teaching and researching PE is taken for granted by those involved in teaching and producing knowledge; paradigmatic/methodological orientation is not contested;

• The possibility of making use of PE's socialization, interactive, binding features to bring children back to school, introduce measures against bullying, stress the meaning of and respect for life, open new perspectives and build character is not considered by research in PE;

• That historically or 'scientistically' institutionalized postulates are widespread and taken for granted in the discipline of PE is not contested;

• Research in PE misleads society through the assumption that current scientific postulates/theories founded chiefly in positivist research are the "truths" of PE's rationale;

• Sport, recreation and health are enthroned as the maxims of PE;

• Research in PE presents conservative central discourses, characterized by the insufficient scrutiny of the social meanings of PE's concepts (Kageyama, 1995);

• Research in PE reports facts of PE situations; does not question meanings nor hypothesize that changes are due;

• Research in PE does not contest the values, practices and assumptions of PE; nor does it address the social, educational, political or ideological reality of PE.

• Society/social statuses, school settings/curricula, or the educational system/policies are not contested;

• Research in PE works as a reinforcer of the status quo, ideology, oppression, discrimination or inequalities -- it works for the dominant order/against the dominated;

• Research in PE does not attempt to investigate whether something needs to be improved or changed;

• PE is not a site for struggles (a field for debate or disagreement);

• PE naively believes that the simple participation in sporting practices automatically develops individual or collective character, the good citizen mentality, caring human beings, competition-oriented workers or hard-working individuals;

• PE does not acknowledge political, social or educational changes;

• As society changes so rapidly in Japan we are to assume that PE and society's approach to PE change too. However, as demonstrated, the approach to research in PE and the final outcome of scholarly inquiries do not display signs of a change either in society or in the field itself.

    The current trend in the research of PE in Japan does not examine the reality of the situation critically or interpretively. Not only the research premises fail to acknowledge the need for reform but they portray the current trend as the paradigm for conducting research. Research in PE in Japan shows no intention of interpreting or instigating change to people's values, practices and assumptions nor in educating them about the actual meaning of the events happening around them. In addition to a unilateral approach to methodological orientation, the indifference of research in PE toward social agenda is a reflection of the current widespread social phenomenon in Japan, and it has rather weakened voices critical of the present state of affairs of the discipline of PE and in society as a whole. Kageyama et al. (1993) contend that those involved in PE in Japan "lack social awareness regarding the many problems present society is suffering from, and the functions of physical education in society." Generally speaking, research in PE demonstrates little interest in discussing basic values, ranging from sociopolitics to methodology. While this tendency is especially conspicuous in Japan, it has yet been noted worldwide since the paradigm debate took place in the 1980's in western countries (Harris, 1983; Eisner, 1988; Locke, 1989; Maguire, 1991; Sage, 1989; Schempp, 1987; Soltis, 1984; Sparkes, 1989, 1991, 1992b, 1994).

    In an age in which unknown forces determine the fate of all aspects of the world, it seems that Japanese people and PE have grown accustomed to the situation and do not find it abnormal that de facto standards exist even in the basic value system of a society. However, contrary to what many assume, the basic value systems of PE, including sociopolitical, social, educational ideals, are related to human ethics. They are related to choices that need to be made about how we should address or, eventually, change society and the approaches to our field of study we presently espouse. They were originally things that individuals should choose themselves, and individuals have to arrive at a consensus on these value systems of their own free will. To achieve this, it is a matter of course that people should not entrust their value systems to a tacit agreement, but should instead use their brainpower to reach new understandings and give substance to their value systems. Education indeed plays vital roles in furnishing the necessary tools and skills for such undertakings. PE, let us not forget, constitutes a part of the educational system.

    There is now a commonly held trend in Japanese PE research in that quantitative methodologies are de facto research standards-a trend for which content analyses of published work provide evidence. Actually, this political research practice is based on a sense of scientism, i.e. the belief that the principles and methods of the physical and biological sciences should be applied to other disciplines, created by modern researchers and scholars that has been given life by their endless efforts to preserve and further the sense of scientism. The search for knowledge should not be based chiefly on a collection of absolute a priori ideas, but rather should derive from an ideal of "science" that human beings repeatedly have proved through experience, that is to say, research that could explain human beings and their social contexts.

    The ideology of technocratic, scientistic principles and methods is intrinsically encrusted in the theory and practice of Japanese PE. The PE model we have in Japan nowadays is in part a result of the social demand it has been responsible for creating, for example, in the field of sport. According to Kageyama et al. (1993), Japanese PE "has supported the contemporary social system by having the ability to respond to people's practical needs." From an ideological point of view, PE can be seen as an indicator or as a mirror of society in as much as society, to a certain extent, reflects PE's values, practices and assumptions. However, according to evidence gathered so far, research in Japanese PE does not reflect society from an interpretive or critical point of view. Shortcomings derived from such a unilateral approach to PE (however, I do not intend to comment further concerning this argument) are that PE is possessed by the same technological and scientistic approach existing within sport. PE is being used mainly as a means to teach, disseminate, reinforce, maintain and protect the positivist ideology present in sport. I am not inferring that interpretive or critical research does not take place neither stating that critique of sport is not addressed in Japan. All I am contending is that the research community as a whole as well as society in general do not effectively evaluate the pros and cons of the sport order, nor do they appraise the usage of PE as a means for supporting technological and scientistic claims. In English language publications it is possible to find a number of articles questioning sport's meanings and assumptions, sociopolitical implications of sport, the ideology behind sport, and so on. However, in Japan, the ideological, social and political drawbacks of sport are more or less taken for granted on the assumption of the good qualities of sport. I am not at all against sport as a recreational, educative, or even as a competitive activity. What I quarrel with is the way sport is taught, researched, approached, used, worshipped and institutionalized by many professionals within the discipline of PE; and the way society, as an aftermath of the social ramifications of sport and PE, comes to judge sport. I also quarrel with the institutionalization and appropriation of the positivist ideology inherent in competitive high-level sport practices and the way professionals of PE have their minds and experience shaped to observe and perpetrate that ideology at the expense of more effective educational pursuits.

Concluding Remarks

    Judging by the tone and emphasis of what has been asserted so far, it may sound as I am set on castigating the Japanese social and educational systems. That is not my primary objective-though it seems high time for academic critical approaches to those systems to be properly addressed. The major motivating forces behind this investigation are as follows.
(1) The attempt to shed light on problems arising within Japanese society, more specifically in the educational context;
(2) Through a contemplation of subjects germane to PE -- education, school, and society, for example -- the attempt to establish a correlation between the common problems existing in them and PE. The justification for which are that PE constitutes a portion of society/education and, in part, represents them; and that PE contributes to the construction of social reality.

    The nexus of my argumentation on school, the educational system, society and research methodologies is: if Japanese schools, the educational system and society present problems that affect the formation of its citizens and hampers the social and educational development of the nation, should not PE be concerned about them? Why are all these not reflected in PE research? If one is to take at face value the contents and findings of academic research published in present-day scientific journals of PE in Japan, there is no way for him or her to detect that schools, the educational system and society are suffering from social or educational malaises. One conclusion that he or she may draw is that PE is a very healthy field and, by extrapolation, assume that school PE is in a pretty good condition too.

    Within the scope of this study is a demonstration of how Japanese PE is distancing itself from and, as a consequence, not taking notice of all the occurrences within the school, educational and social systems. I have never read anywhere that the major task of PE was to research, promote and ameliorate sport or health. Judging by the emphasis placed on research of the discipline in Japan, Japanese researchers, teachers and scholars are not interested in determining sociopolitical concerns and connections, correlational implications, or meanings for values, practices and assumptions widespread within the discipline; nor are they interested in contributing to cause or instigate change. All that is usually within their scope is to 'scientistically' report what is happening in PE/sport and health, and with what frequency. Japanese PE specialists cannot contribute to the formation of creative, independent, freethinking individuals if they keep chiefly observing natural science-oriented perspectives to approach, research and teach PE. What I quarrel with is not the usage of positivistic methodologies to understand and research PE, but with the fact that most research undertakings and most expressions of physical movement are chiefly guided by values, practices and assumptions of a positivist mode of inquiry.

    The emulation of only one paradigmatic mode provide people with a limited scope of choices that are, inevitably, in accordance with the doctrine prescribed and taken for granted by those engaged in approaching the world from this same dominant perspective. These affirmations have imparted the importance of the role attributed to teachers and those involved in the educational process. Researchers are in the main responsible for institutionalizing a system of codes -- language, object, schema -- for conducting research. Therefore, researchers are, to a great extent, implicated not only in the institutionalization, dissemination and safekeeping of a paradigmatic mode of inquiry but are responsible for the way their scientific claims affect the construction of knowledge and, as a consequence of that, for the way such claims shape society's values, practices and assumptions. The sense of community Japanese researchers have, their self-interests, the security provided by their 'expert' status and the unwritten rules of academia offer an unsuspicious medium for researchers to keep conducting research without challenging new grounds, without acknowledging the need to extend the boundaries of knowledge and/or without accepting the reasoning for establishing alternative perspectives to contest the dominant order in conducting scholarly inquiry. Cavalli (2001) asserts that "Researchers who believe in the development of a higher profile PE should seek amelioration of the state and status of the PE domain through the adoption of an overall strategic approach involving at the very outset the strategy of conducting scholarly research."

    As argued elsewhere (Cavalli & Fujiwara, 2001), if the Japanese research community continues with its nearly single-minded attention to positivism, they should, at least, be more aware of the implications of nurturing such an undertaking. As most of us are well aware of, there are no statements or methods that are value-neutral. Positivist researchers affirm that their methods, procedures, approaches, findings and the investigation itself are value-free. They indeed are value-free, but only within the scope of the researchers' realm. We cannot say that their research will not have implications or will not be a statement for a political positioning. Always, for good or for bad, there are going to be consequences of an action. These consequences may not affect the methodological approach to research itself, but at educational and sociopolitical levels there are implications. We have to consider that if children's experiences are shaped by positivist assumptions, values and practices, the whole core of society is, consequently, going to be guided by those technocratic, scientistic principles and methods.

    How can we approach school bullying, dropout cases, lack of creativity, juvenile crime increase and so forth from a positivist perspective? How can positivist research make us aware of the 'whys' of all these incidents or prevent their happening? If sport is good for people, as assumed, affirmed and researched by a large number of professionals in Japanese PE, why not make use of sport's interactive, friendship generating, character developing qualities to halt bullying, bring children back to school, foment creativity and make them more caring human beings? Examples of Olympic level athletes who were given a chance abound. Olympic gold medalist and former long jump world record holder Bob Beamon was a juvenile offender six or seven years before the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. Olympic gold medalist and former world heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman too was a youth offender (Kane, 2000).

Lecturas: Educación Física y Deportes · http://www.efdeportes.com · Año 6 · Nº 33

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