Abstract
Can you find the child in physical education research? Can you see evidence of the child in research dealing with the school curriculum of physical education or the teaching-learning processes of the gymnasium or sportsfield? This is the pedagogical question to which I draw attention. My purpose is to show the significance of this question by (a) critiquing current research agendas and situating the question within the context of North American research traditions, by (b) entering the life of these traditions and showing how the question might guide our research activity, and by (c) indicating the nature of the methodology that supports our work. Through descriptions of children's physical activities, I give textual evidence of the pedagogical orientation at the heart of physical education research and, at the same time, provide concrete examples of a human science approach to physical education research, which I think goes some way to answering the question “Where is the child?”

This publication has 24 references indexed in Scilit: