Graduate studies in Brazilian physical education: the (fatal) attraction to biodynamics

Abstract

The present work aimed at the academic characterization of physical education in Brazil. First, a parallel was made between the history of academic characterization of physical education in North America and in Brazil. Next, the analysis of the areas comprehended by graduate study programs was carried out in the field around Brazil. A survey was done considering the field of concentration and its interface and links with the size of faculty, with research lines and with research projects. Physical education is the most preferred term to name the majority of the Brazilian graduate programs in contrast with the United States where Kinesiology is preferred. The analysis of the field of concentration yields three main subfields: biodynamics, sociocultural and pedagogical. Biodynamics takes precedence as one considers the size of the faculty and the number of research lines and projects always greater than the same variables in comparison with sociocultural and pedagogical subfields. This hegemony reflects a trend in which natural sciences-oriented research is privileged over human and social sciences-oriented research and difficulty in valuing the intervention, especially in schooling. This portrait resembles what happens in the US as some North American scholars from the sociocultural and pedagogical subfields have also identified difficulties in making their theoretical and methodological conceptions compatible with the hegemonic modes of thinking and investigation in kinesiology.